


The Fates We Steal

by overprimrose



Category: NU'EST
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Universe, M/M, Soulmates, side hwang minhyun/kang dongho | baekho, soulmates taste everything each other eat au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-09-29
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:55:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 22,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24346099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/overprimrose/pseuds/overprimrose
Summary: Years ago, Mingi chose to protect Jonghyun and hide that they are soulmates. Now, Mingi vows to do the opposite.
Relationships: Choi Minki | Ren/Kim Jonghyun | JR
Comments: 37
Kudos: 86





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> in december i was like 'what if i wrote a cute soulmate fic where mingi decides to make 2020 his best year and finally confess on nuest's anniversary' and wow did 2020 ruin my plans

“I’m going to tell you,” Mingi said. His fingers skimmed through Jonghyun’s hair, but Jonghyun didn’t shift. Not that Mingi expected him to. Despite his previous assertion, he’d never say any of this with even the slightest chance Jonghyun could overhear.

“I mean it. I’m going to tell you. ‘Hey, Jonghyun: I know your biggest secret.’ See? It’s easy.”

It was so easy, Mingi could even say the second thing he had to tell Jonghyun at the same time. The second was unequivocally connected to the first, and also happened to be _Mingi’s_ biggest secret.

“Hey, Jonghyun: I’m your soulmate. Bet you didn’t expect that, huh?” Mingi gestured outward, as though Jonghyun was looking him square in the eye, but Jonghyun was still fast asleep with his head on Mingi’s lap. His slow breaths hit Mingi’s thigh.

Earlier, Jonghyun had made the softest complaint when Mingi shifted, and Mingi’s heart had turned to putty. Now, the position he sat in had his hip aching, but Mingi couldn’t find it in himself to wake Jonghyun, or even risk rousing him.

It was stupid. He was treating Jonghyun like Aron treated his dogs, not like how Mingi treated his bandmates. He’d have shoved Minhyun off before he’d even fallen asleep and would have moved too much for Dongho, who could sleep anywhere as long as the _where_ stayed still.

Even Aron, who was the most likely to fall asleep on Mingi’s lap, would have had to deal with Mingi moving to make himself more comfortable.

The problem was that they weren’t his soulmate.

Earlier, Mingi had tasted fried chicken and beer, and there was a BHC takeout container in their trash, and a beer can crushed in their recycling. Mingi had confirmed he and Jonghyun were soulmates so long ago that he rarely kept track anymore; no reason to confirm what he already knew, right?

“I don’t think I can _not_ tell you for much longer,” Mingi said. “Like seriously. I’ve said that before, but I can’t anymore. Not even for you.”

2020 was a year of change. Mingi had just found out he’d gotten a role in a musical for the very first time, and it was a role that absolutely required standing up for yourself and what you believe in.

If Mingi was going to be Jamie, he needed to be raw and open and _himself_. “I’m going to tell you by our anniversary.”

NU'EST's anniversary, he meant. He and Jonghyun would have to actually, well, be together for them to have any other anniversary to prepare for.

Still. Mingi could take Jonghyun out somewhere special around then. He could order a special drink for himself.

Something sweet. Something unique enough not many other people could possibly be drinking it at that moment.

That way, when Jonghyun inevitably tasted it, he’d understand. After all these years of Mingi struggling desperately to confront Jonghyun or trying desperately to keep it a secret, Jonghyun could finally put the whole damn thing together himself.

 _Yes_ , Mingi was his soulmate. _Yes_ , Mingi knew he was a liar. And y _es_ , Mingi was willing to spend his entire life loving him despite that, but Jonghyun had to give him something. Mingi couldn’t sustain himself on nothing anymore.

He could wake Jonghyun up right now and tell him. What was stopping him?

Mingi’s nails trailed against Jonghyun’s scalp, a familiar motion that had always been good at lulling him to sleep. It was a habit now; he did it whenever Jonghyun put his head in easy reach. But unlike normally, this time Mingi’s hand shook. His hip ached. Mingi would need to stand up soon, and force Jonghyun to move no matter how comfortable he was.

2020 would be a year of change.

“You’re my soulmate,” Mingi told Jonghyun, who could not hear him. “You’re my soulmate and I’ve known for years, and one day—one day _soon_ —I’m going to tell you all this. I don’t care if it fucks things up, because not telling you makes me feel like I’ll literally die.”

It was the most passionate confession Mingi had ever made, and the first time he’d so much as even whispered about being Jonghyun’s soulmate, but still, Jonghyun didn’t miraculously wake. Mingi was certain he’d be out for much longer if not disturbed.

For now, Mingi stayed still. But soon... Soon, he'd move. And when he did, things would change.

“Hey, Dongho, what did you eat today?” Minhyun asked. The five of them were seated on one side of a long table, and Minhyun had to lean around Jonghyun to address Dongho. They were on live right now, their newest episode of NU’EST Late Night Craft Store. From off camera, Aron made a face at Mingi, which disappeared the second he was in the view of fans again. Mingi failed to hide his smile as Aron retook his seat. He disguised it as a reaction to Dongho’s immediate embarrassment, and laughed as Dongho’s ears grew redder and redder.

Dongho should be long used to this sort of stuff. It was some sort of weird flirting thing between them.

“Minhyun…” was all Dongho said back. They were all good at dodging questions about foods and soulmates. Once upon a time, Pledis had given them explicit rules about it, like never eating on a live show, but it was all second nature by now. It summed up to this: avoid saying anything to narrow down who could potentially be your soulmate. Let fans have their fantasies.

That also meant the last thing they should do was bring up soulmate-related things themselves, but well, they’d only ever caused one major problem and that felt like ancient history by now. Their manager never pushed them too hard to cut it out. 

“Was it delicious at least?” Jonghyun asked. It was both a respite and a continuation of the conversation. Jonghyun didn’t want to see Minhyun flirt with Dongho on camera any more than the rest of them, but he was not about to give up a chance to embarrass Dongho.

“It was!” Dongho said, even though they all knew he was still on a diet, and diet-food was never delicious. “I really loved it.”

“Mm, I wonder who tasted it.” To Jonghyun’s credit, he didn’t so much as glance at Minhyun as he said it, but he did seem a little smug that Dongho couldn’t retaliate and tease Jonghyun in return.

They didn’t often say it aloud, but everyone knew that Kim Jonghyun had no soulmate.

“Hey, Mingi, have you even started?” Mingi blinked a couple of times and looked down at the craft pieces in front of him. No, he hadn’t started. The point of these lives were to create simple crafts as they talked with each other and with fans. Mingi had a whole pile of little jewels on the table in front of him.

“I was reading the comments,” he said, raising his voice to be heard over Aron’s laughter. Mingi hadn’t realized he’d zoned out that long. He looked at the comments again now, as Jonghyun’s arm slipped around his back. He squeezed Mingi’s upper arm, but Mingi didn’t react.

The comments continued.

_please be happy jonghyun_

_I’ll eat well for you Jonghyun !!_

_don’t be sad mingi-yah_

Mingi’s eyes skated over to Aron’s craft. He’d separated all the sequins he was using into tiny piles by color, and had mostly stuck to gold and silver and pink.

“I’m going to use green,” Mingi announced. Jonghyun squeezed his arm again.

REWIND

Mingi comes to Seoul to take over the world. It feels special, that he took a train from Busan to Seoul on his own, that he’s got this big bag packed with belongings because he’s going to live in an entirely new place with entirely new people. Mingi is a trainee to be an idol now, and he doesn’t know what to expect.

The man who scouted him picks him up from the train station. He’s already told Mingi to call him Taesong hyung, and he answers Mingi’s incessant questions patiently. Yes, they’re scouting male trainees for the first time. Yes, Taesong is in charge of deciding who they are. No, it’s not easy for him to explain how he chooses. He just sometimes sees a kid and thinks ‘that one. That one’s special.’

Mingi likes that answer. He _is_ special. The mystery makes it seem like fate, especially because for years, Mingi had promised anyone who would listen that he would be famous one day.

Taesong mentions the company plans to expand. He says they recently rented an apartment right next to the company building, where Mingi will be living, and that in only a few days, Taesong is heading out again to find even more trainees. They want to have enough for a whole group soon.

“I thought you said there’s already another trainee,” Mingi says.

“Kim Jonghyun. He’s been living with one of our managers,” Taesong says. “You two will have to get along. You might debut together one day, and you'll have to support each other.”

Mingi vows right then and there that he’s going to be Kim Jonghyun’s best friend, and that’s exactly what he tells Jonghyun the first time they meet, forgoing all the warnings from his mom that _you can’t charge into everything, Mingi-yah_.

“We’re going to be best friends.” Mingi hugs Jonghyun, and doesn’t even mind that Jonghyun’s a little quiet, and that his arms take an extra second to hug Mingi back. Though Mingi can’t see it, Jonghyun, who’s been lonely since the day he reached Seoul, smiles.

Later, Mingi will realize he’s begun to hold himself accountable for that smile, despite how it’s never too hard to draw out. Jonghyun opens like a moonflower, as soon as Mingi’s there to provide him some moonlight.

On Mingi’s second day, Jonghyun introduces him to the female trainees. Their schedules hardly ever overlap, but they’d seen Jonghyun alone before and said hi. He explains this all a little too hastily, like he’s worried Mingi will say something about him being friends with girls.

(Mingi does not, in fact, say anything about Jonghyun being friends with girls, because Mingi has long been aware that girls make great friends and anyone who says otherwise is dumb.)

And so Mingi eagerly meets them, and feels something he doesn’t totally understand when one asks “are you sure you’ve only known him for a day?” after Mingi makes Jonghyun laugh twice (twice!).

He finally calls it pride, even though that’s not quite right.

FAST FORWARD

The new dorm is different. Bigger. More empty. That’s a weird thing to say about it, because Mingi is one of five within their single bedroom, and they _still_ don’t even have a bed for each of them. They’ve already decided Minhyun will sleep in-between Aron and Dongho on the bottom of their two pushed-together bunk beds.

So yeah. There’s not much space, but it’s still empty. Before, they had over a dozen trainees crammed into one room. Now, there are five of them, which is fewer than Mingi expected, and they aren’t trainees anymore, they’re pre-debut idols. They’ve got a name, and a concept, and everything.

NU’EST

Mingi has been saying it aloud to himself on-and-off all night, and now he says it again. He’s flat on his back in his top bunk, staring at the ceiling, trying to make ‘NU’EST’ analogous with his dreams and his future. Mingi had expected the name to click, but all that had happened today was that his head had started buzzing more and more as new information got stuffed inside of it.

Tomorrow they get to start learning a song that will be on their debut album.

“Mingi?” Jonghyun’s whisper is a little too loud, and Mingi gasps. He had thought the others had fallen asleep, but when he turns, he sees Jonghyun poking his head above the wooden railing separating their beds. Mingi rolls over to face him, and doesn’t bother to hide his smile. Jonghyun has such an array of sparkling emotions in his eyes that Mingi takes comfort in it. They’d both teared up earlier, sitting in that conference room and finding out their dreams will all come true.

“You can’t sleep either?” Jonghyun asks.

Mingi frantically shakes his head. He’s never been more awake in his entire life. He looks at the uneven bits of the drywall ceiling and imagines them as stars.

“This feels—I don’t know. Good. Amazing. But different than I thought.”

The last he’d heard, there would be eight of them debuting together.

“Does it feel right to you?” Mingi asks.

Jonghyun has this habit of pressing his lips together as he thinks. “I don’t know how else it would feel,” he says finally. 

“Like, I don’t know. It was so sudden, and what about the—”

“Hey!” Both Mingi and Jonghyun jolt at the interruption, but it’s quickly followed by, “if you two aren’t gonna be quiet, at least talk to us too.”

Mingi leans over the outside edge of his bed and meets three pairs of eyes. Then, he turns his eyes a little higher, and spots Jonghyun on the other side in an identical position as himself. He and Jonghyun both giggle, and the others quickly join in, until the whole lot of them can’t seem to stop.

“So none of us can sleep,” Jonghyun says, once they quieted.

“We’re learning our song tomorrow.” The way Dongho says it makes it sound a lot like ‘of course we’re all awake.’

Jonghyun grins, and Mingi feels his own cheeks stinging too. Yeah. Their song. NU’EST’s song.

Maybe this is exactly how achieving their dreams should feel.

“Jonghyun, you should say something,” Mingi says.

“Huh?”

“This is the eve of us learning our first NU’EST song!” Mingi says. “And you’re our leader! You should say something.”

“Oh well, I don’t—” he says, and Mingi can hear how flustered he is from being called the leader. He’d been totally blindsided by it earlier, but Mingi hadn’t been. If Jonghyun was a teaspoon less humble, he likely wouldn’t have been so surprised either.

“I can say something,” Minhyun says.

“Yeah, but no one wants to hear _you_ say it.”

“Aron does! Right, hyung?”

Mingi’s ninety-percent sure Aron’s likely only caught sixty percent of everything they’ve been saying, but Mingi still laughs so hard he nearly topples to the floor when Aron tells Minhyun he doesn’t want to hear anything he has to say.

By the time Mingi’s resituated himself, Minhyun’s doing his best to shove Aron off his bed, and making an absolute nuisance of himself. He keeps smacking into Dongho, who keeps scolding him, and finally, they’re making so much racket that Jonghyun raises his voice to tell them they’re going to bother their new neighbors.

“See?” Mingi says. “That’s why you’re the leader. Now say something leaderly.”

A small pause. Everyone’s actually paying attention to Jonghyun now, and Mingi thinks he’s not alone in needing something final to make this day feel right.

“We’re in charge of our own fate,” Jonghyun says. “Let’s work hard.”

Mingi is genuinely impressed for a handful of seconds, because that really _does_ feel right, and it really _does_ make Jonghyun sound like a leader, until Minhyun goes, “did you just quote something?”

“That’s definitely from a manga,” Dongho adds. Mingi’s laughing too hard to say much at all, because Jonghyun looks horribly betrayed, and also it’s absolutely from a manga. Mingi should have known better than to think Jonghyun would come up with that on his own.

“Shut up!” Jonghyun says. “It’s not. My mom says it all the time!”

“So it is a quote?” Aron asks.

“It’s not from a manga!” Jonghyun repeats. “And I mean it. We’re in charge of our own fates.” He pulls himself back up onto his bed, and Mingi flips back over just in time to see him rest his folded hands flat on his stomach. “There,” he says, looking at the cracked drywall ceiling that may as well be made of stars. “Those are my words."

NOW

hackingz supremacy @optimisthwang

antis who try to say that jonghyun saying he doesnt have a soulmate is a scandal… just say u think people without soulmates dont deserve love and go

hackingz supremacy @optimisthwang

hey remember when jonghyun had to say he’d work hard to “still be deserving of our love” all because he let fans know that someone special to him passed away wow you know what we should use that to hate on his group

hackingz supremacy @optimisthwang

“he lied during produce 101!!” yea okay that def doesnt have anything to do with how fucking everyone was hating on them back then. jonghyun’s talked about how his parents arent soulmates too many times for antis to say he thinks ppl can only be happy w a romantic soulmate

Jonghyun might not know that Mingi was his soulmate, but the thing about soulmates was that your soul recognized them, even if you didn’t.

Even if you denounced the whole idea of soulmates entirely, your soul still recognized them.

Jonghyun showed his love in a couple ways.

He liked to touch Mingi. Little things. Jonghyun’s arm around him. His fingers playing with the outside seam on the side of Mingi’s jeans.

And big things. Half his weight draped over Mingi’s back. His head on Mingi’s lap, on his chest, on his shoulder. Jonghyun’s suggestion that they live together in the dorm back after Minhyun said he wanted to move out, and Mingi had known that Minhyun’s reasoning was right, but it had still stung because they’d just gotten him back.

 _It can be temporary_ , Jonghyun had promised. _Since now doesn’t feel right._

He’d said that for Mingi, not himself. Jonghyun believed in making things feel right, not waiting until they did. But Jonghyun also wasn’t as endlessly self-sacrificing as he sometimes seemed. If he hadn’t wanted to stay, he wouldn’t have.

They had never mentioned another lease, even though the dorm was a cost deducted directly from the money he and Jonghyun made, and they could definitely do better for themselves _and_ save money.

Mingi liked the dorm still though. Right now, he was flat on the floor, enjoying the heat rising from it. Jonghyun was curled up under a blanket on the couch.

“Are you going over Minhyun’s tonight?” Mingi asked. Minhyun liked to get into dramas with different people, and then actually stick to only watching them while together. Mingi had been on the receiving side of Minhyun’s constant ‘when are you free? I want to watch more’ badgering one too many times, but it was Jonghyun facing it currently.

“Dongho’s doing a tasting with him,” Jonghyun said. “Paris cafes, and all that.”

“Ah.” Dongho’s love language included many things, but food was right at the top. It had been a while since Minhyun and Dongho had to use their system for spending time together while apart, and Mingi thought they’d both seemed excited for this trip, which was cute, as their system had once been a necessity for them to survive.

“What are you thinking about?” Jonghyun asked. Mingi rested his hands on his belly and looked at the plain ceiling.

“This place,” he said. “It’s been a year.”

A pause. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess it has.” Only a few months until the lease was up in April. If they wanted to find new places, they should start looking now. Minhyun and Dongho lived in the same building. Maybe they could go there too.

But then Mingi would have to explicitly tell Jonghyun he still wanted to live with him. It was one thing for neither of them move out; it was another for them to move into a new place together.

Neither of them were talking, so Mingi looked over to get a better read on Jonghyun. They met eyes at the same time, Jonghyun apparently going to do the exact same, and their timing set them off giggling.

“You don’t want to move out,” Jonghyun asserted.

“You neither?”

“We’d have to clean _the room_.”

Now Mingi really laughed, dropping his head back against the floor. The room _used_ to be Aron’s room, but had slowly become storage space for every kind of fangift ever. They did their best to stay on top of them and drop off donations and everything, but it was all rather piled up. Minhyun insisted the dust bunnies in there had gained sentience. Dongho had told them that that was a good thing, because now they could split rent.

“We’ll make Dongho help,” Mingi said. “You know he puts shit in there.”

“Aron too,” Jonghyun said. “There’s a whole stack of dog toys and collars and stuff.”

“Are you sure those weren’t for you?” Mingi said, and relished the entire series of emotions that went through Jonghyun’s face. Jonghyun stretched out a leg and pressed his cold, bare foot against Mingi’s belly in revenge, and Mingi shrieked and squirmed away.

He managed to catch Jonghyun’s ankle, and pulled hard. Jonghyun dragged the blanket straight off the couch with him, only to land completely under it. He was spluttering even before he got it off, unable to sit up with Mingi’s hold on his leg.

“Hey, that hurt!” he said. His hair was all mussed from the blanket, his face red from their brief struggle. Mingi couldn’t stop laughing for anything, until Jonghyun jabbed his toes into Mingi’s ribs. Mingi yelped and shoved Jonghyun's leg away.

"Ow!" Mingi complained. Jonghyun stuck his tongue out at him.

Then he crawled the little distance between them, still dragging the blanket along, and tipped over, so he could rest his head on Mingi’s stomach. Mingi rested his palm flat between Jonghyun’s shoulder blades as they both regained their breath.

This was a good moment, one of the many they’d had here. It wasn’t always easy to understand Jonghyun, but that didn’t make him bad.

“I’m glad you don’t want to move,” Jonghyun said. “I like living with you.”

“We could always live together somewhere else.”

“We’d get questions,” Jonghyun said. “I mean, look at Dongho and Minhyun.”

They didn’t live together either. Instead, Dongho lived a grand total of eight doors down from Minhyun’s place. It could have been different, but they hadn’t wanted to take any risks.

“We are at the age that idols start moving in with their soulmates, and announcements and everything.” More than one of the Exo members had already done it, as had an EXID member.

Jonghyun didn’t answer immediately, and Mingi added, “Dongho and Minhyun could do it, I mean.” Of course, Mingi didn’t think any idol group had ever announced that two of their members were soulmates before.

“I think they’re still planning on nothing ‘till after we enlist.”

 _And what about you?_ Mingi wanted to ask. _Do you want to wait until after enlistment?_

 _Do you ever want to_ stop _waiting?_

“It must be simpler for you,” Mingi said instead. “Not having to worry about any of it.”

“Well, I still… I still want someone. If it happens. I just want it to be my choice, and not something decided by fate, or whatever.”

Like his parents. Jonghyun was one of the few people Mingi had ever met whose parents weren’t soulmates. They weren’t even two people both with platonic soulmates who had found each other. Jonghyun’s mom still tasted food but had never found her soulmate. Jonghyun’s dad had never mentioned having a soulmate at all.

“Right,” Mingi said, and tried to sound supportive. Jonghyun was dumb to turn down a good thing only because he didn't believe in fate.

“You know," Jonghyun said. "We’ve got Saturday off this week. You should do something with me.”

“You don’t want to game for twelve hours straight again?” Mingi raised his eyebrows. Jonghyun didn’t rise to the bait, so Mingi went on, “I’m down.”

Jonghyun smiled, his head still on Mingi’s stomach, and wasn’t it funny how he could still make Mingi’s heart beat faster after so many years?

Jonghyun might not consciously love him, but his soul did. It was Mingi's job to make him face the fact that fate wasn't always awful, or something to run from.

And he wasn't waiting until their anniversary anymore. He was going to do it on Saturday.

Jonghyun loved him. Even if he didn't know it.

130223 NU’EST RISING STAR INTERVIEW

INTERVIEWER: In the Hello music video, you are shown dating a girl who isn’t your soulmate, and how you’re afraid she’ll leave you for her soulmate after they meet. That’s a very unique concept. How did you choose it?

JR: As a group, we want to portray society from a teenage point of view. In Face, we talked about school violence. We now want to talk about the struggles of teenagers in a new way. Often teenagers are interested in relationships before finding their soulmates, and the decision of whether to date or to wait can be difficult, especially because you could never meet your soulmate, or it could end up being a platonic relationship.

INTERVIEWER: Is that something you specifically worry about?

Minhyun: Well, none of us have dated before *laughs* so I don’t think we have needed to worry about it.

JR: I don’t worry about it. My parents aren’t soulmates, so to me it seems normal that if two people want to, they would date.

Baekho: You would make your soulmate sad, though.

JR: Yes, but they should understand, as my soulmate. I would want them to date, if it made them happy.

INTERVIEWER: This music video is very different than your previous ones, Face and Action. What are your thoughts about it?

Baekho: It was fun! But the acting was difficult.

Aron: Yes. It was a lot of work.

JR: I’m glad we did it. I really like this concept, and I hope fans do too.

Baekho: He only liked it because he got to kiss a girl in it.

INTERVIEWER: *laughs* JR, is that true? What did you think of the kiss?

JR: Um. Well, I thought it was something the fans would enjoy. Haha.

INTERVIEWER: Did you have to practice the kiss?

JR: I originally only planned to kiss her cheek, but the director…

Ren: You had good chemistry with her.

Minhyun: I had to practice being slapped!

Mingi had seen all the ways soulmates could work. Growing up, he'd seen the kind of relationship that ran as easily as water but still showed how they treasured each other. Quiet ‘thinking of you’s hidden in a random bite of the other’s favorite food. Scheduling meals at the same time whenever Mingi’s grandmother wanted to eat one of the several foods her husband could not stand. Mingi had seen it all, and he wanted it. 

Then, his front-row seat to Minhyun and Dongho’s relationship had stolen some of the mysticism from the whole process. Even now, Mingi could guess at how Minhyun and Dongho were going about their long-distance flirting.

They’d schedule a time, after Dongho did some sightseeing, so he would have stories and pictures of different places around Paris to show Minhyun. Then he’d stop at a café or a restaurant, one of the fancy ones that would have a sampler dish made for soulmates. He’d get it to go, if possible, and once back in his hotel room, he’d call Minhyun, and they’d spend a long while talking and trying the foods. Dongho would make Minhyun guess from the taste, and Minhyun would be bad at it. They’d rank their favorites. Inevitably, their tastes would be absolutely different.

Yeah, Dongho and Minhyun had taken a lot of the mysticism away. But they’d also proven that soulmates had something that Mingi and Jonghyun did not.

The thing was, soulmates seemed to know. Like, _know_. It had also happened to Aron, who had told them about Joel like two hours after he found out, and seemed surprised when Mingi asked him whether it was romantic because he was already so certain that what they shared was platonic.

It had happened even more clearly to Minhyun and Dongho.

NU’EST had been celebrating that day. It was 2013, and Minhyun was only a couple weeks from turning nineteen. Dongho had turned nineteen only a few days prior. The summer was at its peak, and the celebration was because they’d finished recording Sleep Talking, and also because it seemed things had finally smoothed over after Jonghyun had spoken so plainly about his lack of a soulmate.

The latter seemed like a small thing, but their group had changed over the past months. For the first time, the ground had seemed to fall out from underneath them, and they’d had to balance with all five on them on the tip of a needle. Jonghyun might prefer to rely on his own strength, rather than others’, but it had been impossible. He had needed them.

Their manager’s initial scolding had been bad enough, after Jonghyun had blatantly disregarded the rules about how to speak on camera, but then it grew worse. Jonghyun and the rest of them weren't called into any meetings with the company for months, not even after his apology.

It had been infuriating, and they hadn’t been able to do a thing about it. They’d just been…pushed aside. Ignored. Not once after Jonghyun’s apology did they scold him, but that only made it worse. Mingi had never felt so powerless.

He maybe would have been angrier at Jonghyun for blatantly disregarding the rules they’d had since debut, if the company hadn’t so clearly disregarded them. They’d needed to rally together. They only had each other. 

But also, Mingi thought he had been the member who most easily understood why Jonghyun had done it. Idols were clean-cut and bright, but they also had the hills they’d die on. For Mingi, it was fighting the stereotypes that told him he didn’t look or dress right for his gender. For Jonghyun, it was that fate wasn’t the end all-be all of life.

Mingi had stood up for his beliefs by looking how he wanted, and NU’EST had occasionally had hard times because of that. Jonghyun couldn’t convey his message using his looks, so he’d used words.

Besides, Mingi understood why Jonghyun believed what he did better than ever. They’d changed in these few months. Mingi had once struggled to make NU’EST analogous with his dreams, but now NU'EST was more analogous with his family.

Fate might have put them together, but they’d chosen to make it into something more than that.

And, well, Sleep Talking might not be the concept any of them had predicted, but that didn’t mean they weren’t proud of it.

So yeah. Many things had turned this day into a celebration, and their spirits couldn’t be higher. They let Dongho order, and he ordered _so much_ food. Literally, so much. Their manager had told them to eat how they wished, after all, a rare moment where cost fell to the wayside. Still, they laughed at Dongho, who defended his ordering by saying if they get to celebrate, their soulmates should get to, too.

They’d laughed, especially because Dongho couldn’t even taste anything from his soulmate yet. Mingi couldn’t either. It tended to start around a person’s nineteenth birthday. Jonghyun had gained the ability real young, and Minhyun a hint early. It was frustrating that Mingi couldn’t yet. He wanted to find his soulmate already.

When they got the food, Dongho took great pleasure in dropping some on all their plates and still managed to be the first to take a bite.

And as he chewed that bite, Minhyun’s chopsticks slipped from his hand and clattered against his plate. His eyes went wide. Few people met their soulmate so quickly.

Without explaining, Minhyun pointed at a different side dish and ordered Dongho to try it. Without questioning, Dongho did. Minhyun pointed again; Dongho ate again. Then, Minhyun looked Dongho straight in the eyes from across the table, and all he said was Dongho’s name. That was it. Just

_Dongho_

And Dongho understood. His mouth dropped open enough to show them the food still inside it.

That was the part Mingi didn’t get. Dongho understood. He couldn’t even confirm it himself, but it still clicked into place. Like oh, Hwang Minhyun, the kid from a Busan beach who’d insisted he met aliens and took pride in his nagging ability and had somehow become a rock for them and their team in the past few months, was his soulmate. They’d be together forever.

“I really want to kiss you right now,” Minhyun burst out, and Dongho burst into a smile, and Mingi had had just enough time to think that that might be the most romantic thing he’d ever seen, before Aron went “ew, not in front of us!”

NOW

ping enthusiast @bbaekmmins

baekmin hit their peak that time they got so into a discussion about drink preference that dongho asked minhyun what he’d do if his soulmate didnt like grapefruitade and minhyun deadass told him he’d get a better soulmate

jenna @pockyyyyjr

if jren hadnt changed the topic they would've kept bringing up different foods and arguing about them gfdjkgfd

ping enthusiast @bbaekmmins

in jren we trust at least someone kept them all going

“Are you mad at me?” Jonghyun blurted out. They were together at the island in their kitchen, two glasses of wine balanced on the white top. Like always, Mingi had waited for Jonghyun to take the first sip—even sweet wine dried out your mouth when not followed by the liquid trickling down your throat—before he took his own. Soulmates didn’t taste each other’s meals if they ate at the same time.

“Why do you think I’m angry?”

Jonghyun shrugged. He'd asked while Mingi was mid-story, and his embarrassment and the interruption made it more than clear he hadn't planned on saying that. 

“I’m not,” Mingi said, but he couldn’t think of anything else to say after. He didn’t think he’d treated Jonghyun any differently from usual, but his promise to tell Jonghyun had weighed pretty heavily on his mind recently. Mingi took his resolutions seriously. 

“You know you can talk to me about anything,” Jonghyun said. It was not as much a friendly reminder as an assertion that Mingi already knew that.

“Our leader.” Mingi was earnest, and bitter. He owed so much to Jonghyun, he wanted more from Jonghyun.

“Mingi-yah…”

“I’m not angry at you,” he reiterated. “Really.”

Jonghyun watched him some more. Mingi wanted to tell him not to look so hard.

“My mom wants me to go to Gangneung when I’m free next,” Jonghyun said, finally. “She said it’s not an emergency, but…”

Yeah, Mingi knew. Jonghyun’s mom wasn’t one to demand something from her son without a very good reason. “Do you know when you’ll go?”

“This weekend, probably.”

Mingi had kinda expected that, but he couldn’t help the painful twinge in his chest. Jonghyun had a valid reason to go, but this was the day Mingi had chosen to tell him everything. To admit he knew Jonghyun lied, and call him out for it. How dare Jonghyun turn his back on something he didn't even understand? 

And now Jonghyun was running away from fate. Again. 

"I know you were looking forward to it, but Mom said--"

"You don't need to apologize."

"We can reschedule."

No, because now it didn't feel right. "We're together all the time. It's fine." 

Mingi felt a little gross for snapping, so he added, "I hope your mom is okay." 

A pause. Then, "you can keep telling me about your musical practice. I didn't mean to interrupt." 

Right. Mingi had been mid-story, telling Jonghyun about a new friend he'd made at practice. The guy wasn't a cast member, but Mingi had gotten so caught up in conversation with him, he'd forgotten to ask what exactly Hakmin _did_ do. They'd only started talking in the first place because Mingi had caught him staring and went over because he'd gotten curious, but Hakmin seemed like a friend that would last. Mingi had been excited to tell Jonghyun about him.

"It's not important," Mingi said. 

（＾ｖ＾）@happiestbaekho

Thread about when NU’EST JR announced he doesn’t have a soulmate, bc a lot of newer fans mention it and i dont think they totally understand what it was like back then

（＾ｖ＾）@happiestbaekho

jonghyun’s bond opened in 2012, when he was 17. nu’est got questions about it allll the time because jonghyun was so young, but it was clear it made jonghyun really shy and sometimes even uncomfortable. he tried really hard to answer though and kept saying he knew the questions made fans happy :(

（＾ｖ＾）@happiestbaekho

they’d ask him to send messages to his soulmate and then ask a lot about what kind of soulmate he’d be once he met her (b/c of course they assumed it would be a romantic relationship & theyd be a girl 🙄) jonghyun usually said he wanted a relationship like what his parents had, even though they weren’t soulmates

（＾ｖ＾）@happiestbaekho

but interviewers were gross about that too. one told jonghyun that any relationship he had with his soulmate would be better than his parents’ relationship, because only soulmates can know true love :/

（＾ｖ＾）@happiestbaekho

then nuest released Hello, and it was really clear that the message mattered to jonghyun? that was when he started talking about how his parents aren’t soulmates but still have a happy relationship 🥺

（＾ｖ＾）@happiestbaekho

One time this interviewer kept pushing jonghyun after he said he’d be okay knowing his soulmate dated other people if they wanted to and all of a sudden jonghyun said he would want his soulmate to do whatever made them happy—

（＾ｖ＾）@happiestbaekho

Especially because he hadn’t tasted anything for months, so he likely doesn't have a soulmate anymore. The other members were visibly shocked, and later said jonghyun had never told them beforehand

（＾ｖ＾）@happiestbaekho

it’s hard to really explain what it felt like back then? we were devasted for him… he posted an apology about how he’d work hard to still be someone fans would want as a soulmate, even though he didn’t have one himself, and didnt seem to believe when fans told him he didnt need to apologize :(

（＾ｖ＾）@happiestbaekho

from what the members have said since, it’s clear he was scolded a lot by the company for saying anything. but jonghyun seemed a lot more comfortable after he said it, too. i think he wanted fans to know, or at least have the interviewers stop… i cant imagine how hard it was to have to answer those questions knowing his soulmate had passed away

（＾ｖ＾）@happiestbaekho

so yeah. im glad jonghyun told us, so we don't accidentally upset him. Also don’t comment on his lives claiming you’re his soulmate. it's really not cute.

REWIND

Filming a music video is unlike any other experience in the world. First of all, filming takes forever. Like, seriously, _forever_. Fourteen hours, then a four-hour break before they finish the rest of it—which takes another eight hours, but at least doesn't involve dancing. The Sleep Talking set is bright and colorful and by the end of filming, the colors of it smear together like paint on a canvas whenever Mingi moves his head too fast.

At one point, a light falls over and nearly kills Minhyun (like seriously, he would have _died_ ). At another point, Dongho walks around with his arms stuck out like a zombie, because the lines of paint on him have to dry. Aron makes the same joke four different times about how the constantly-running fan is going to kill them since they’re sleep talking, and by the fourth, Mingi could not be more prepared to film the scene where he gets to try his hardest to throw Aron down a set of stairs (which is, perhaps, partially why Minhyun nearly dies during it. Collateral damage.)

Afterward, they go back to the dorm, ready to pass out dead for at least twelve hours. Most of them—four-fifths—sleep during the car ride, while Minhyun sings because he’s the absolute worst, and eventually they stumble inside. A quick game of rock-paper-scissors determines the shower-order: Mingi first, then Dongho, then Aron, then Minhyun, and lastly, Jonghyun (who protests loudly that _he’s the_ _leader_ , to which none of them bother to respond).

Post-shower and skincare-routine, Mingi means to go straight to bed, but he spots Jonghyun sitting outside the bathroom as Aron showers, his head lolling forward as he nods off. Mingi sits down next to him and guides Jonghyun’s head to his shoulder.

“If you don’t wake up, you’ll wipe out in the shower again.”

He almost doesn’t expect Jonghyun to spare the brainpower to answer, but he mumbles, “that was only one time.”

Mingi chuckles a bit, but he’s too tired to do much more than look at the blank wall across from them. Aron passes by with a towel around his waist and goes “why are you still here?” without stopping. Minhyun stumbles by half a second later.

“Mingi?” Jonghyun breaths. “Do you like the song?”

“Hm?”

“Sleep Talking.”

Mingi makes a ‘I dunno’ style sound. He stopped having opinions four hours ago.

“It's different,” Jonghyun says. “Because of what I said last time.”

“It’s not.”

“It is.”

“Okay, so it is. What’cha gonna do about it?”

Jonghyun only shakes his head slightly, and Mingi feels kinda bad for snapping.

“Look, you say it all the time: we’re in charge of our own fate. Even if this is ‘cause of you, all you did was stand up for yourself. Besides, I like the song. It's fun.”

Mingi doesn't know if he's making his point well, but suddenly it’s really important he gets this across. “But even if I didn't, I think it’s cool that you said what you did. You’ve got no soulmate, and want to say it, and I want to be who I am and not hide it. It’s like we’re in this together, because people look at us both weird, and we get the weird questions. It’s just for different stuff.”

Jonghyun doesn't answer.

"Right?" Mingi says. Still nothing. Jonghyun's eyes are closed. "Ugh. Of course you'd fall asleep." 

Mingi sighs loudly, and starts to run his fingers through Jonghyun's product-heavy hair. 

"You're lucky I like you," he says. "If you were anyone else I'd make you wait alone."

Mingi doesn't see it, but Jonghyun curls his hand into the tightest fist he can make.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trying to divide Jonghyun from Mingi’s life felt a little like removing one of his own limbs.

Mingi could learn a thing or two from Jamie New. He knew what he wanted, and fought for it. He challenged authorities that didn’t respect him. Mingi had related to his character so instantly, he’d spent hours learning the dances and songs required for the audition.

Jamie didn’t always come out on top, and that didn’t stop him. Not everyone loved him, and that didn’t stop him.

If Jamie New’s plans to confess to his soulmate were derailed, he would make new plans. Mingi still had forty-four days before NU’EST’s anniversary. Forty-four days to tell Jonghyun that they were soulmates.

You better believe Mingi will fucking do it.

Mingi didn’t bother to knock on Jonghyun’s door as he entered, but he didn’t plan to stay long. Jonghyun had arrived back from Gangneung only a couple hours ago, and had yet to leave his room. For as great as visiting home could be, it was also an exhausting onslaught of _family_. Jonghyun likely needed the rest.

Mingi might have planned on a second-in, second-out strategy, but his plans changed when he saw Jonghyun blankly watching an anime on his phone, his eyebrows knitted together, a slight frown molded to his lips. He didn’t look up.

Mingi plopped down on the edge of his bed. “What's up?” he asked. He had to raise his voice over the sounds of a dramatic battle Jonghyun wasn't watching.

Jonghyun only grunted, curled up on his side on his old Pikachu bed.

“Was your mom okay?”

“It was nothing,” Jonghyun said, in a way that made it very clear it wasn't nothing. Mingi prepared to press further, but Jonghyun went on without prompting, "actually, I'm glad you came in. I wanted to talk to you about something."

That didn't sound good, but it wasn't like Mingi could say no. He stayed seated. Jonghyun finally paused the anime and sat up beside Mingi.

“I know we said last week that we’d keep living here, but I was thinking about it and—”

“You want to move out.” Mingi didn’t know why he bothered to hope anymore. "Why? I thought--" He cut himself off before he could embarrass himself. He thought Jonghyun liked living with him. He thought somewhere deep inside, Jonghyun loved him.

“Think about it, why do we even stay here? It’s not even that nice, and it’s expensive.”

“You’re right.” Objectively, Jonghyun was right. There was nothing Mingi could say otherwise.

Jonghyun didn’t even try on a smile. He knew Mingi wasn’t happy about this. “So it makes more sense if we move out," he clarified.

“Yeah.”

“Are you…okay with that?”

“No, I’m going to keep you here against your will.” It didn’t sound like a joke. Mingi smiled to fix that, but it didn’t feel like a smile.

“You don’t have to decide now.”

“Jonghyun,” Mingi said. “We knew this would happen. It’s not like we were ever going to live here forever.”

It didn't really feel like the end of a conversation, but Mingi had nothing more to say. Unless-- "And you're sure you don't want to talk about what happened in Gangneung?"

"Nothing happened," Jonghyun lied.

Mingi considered calling him out for lying, first blatantly ("bullshit"), and then more softly ("I'm around if you change your mind"), but Mingi was tired. Tired of holding his heart out for Jonghyun and letting him step on it.

Tired of being so fucking jealous of every time soulmates understood each other instantly, because Mingi knew Jonghyun better than anyone and still didn't understand. Tired of how gross his stewing jealousy toward his own friends felt sometimes. Minhyun and Dongho showed their love in so many ways, and still Minhyun got so fucking shy on the opening night of his musical, when Dongho showed up with a bouquet, and Dongho still got flustered, whenever Minhyun told their fans that whoever was Dongho's soulmate _has got it so lucky, seriously._

Minhyun and Dongho deserved all the happiness in the world, but Mingi just didn't understand what made him and Jonghyun so different. Mingi wanted to be happy with Jonghyun. Mingi at least wanted everything to stop getting worse.

He'd only ever been truly hopeful about him and Jonghyun once. It had lasted a second.

THEN

They’re back in Korea now, finishing up the second of their two last-ditch efforts at some tangible form of success. Mingi’s never worked harder on anything in his entire life, but he struggles to think of Canvas without attaching ‘failure’ to it.

Before, it had been easy to think of ways things could be better. _If only they were in Korea. If only they could make more decisions regarding their music. If only they could have a comeback._

Dongho had had a heavy hand in composing Canvas’ songs. They’d all written lyrics together. They’d helped design the goddamn physical albums.

And none of it had mattered, because no one had listened to it. Mingi’s sole remaining ‘if only’ is ‘if only things had gone differently’ and you can’t set your hope on something like that.

They’d worked so hard on Canvas. It stings almost as badly as the album’s performance that Mingi had to question the sincerity of each congratulations they receive. Especially here, at their post-album promotion company party. Every time an executive speaks to him, Mingi wonders if they’ll be the one that calls Jonghyun into their office to tell him that _sometimes these things just don’t work out_. 

That will infuriate Jonghyun, Mingi is sure. To hear them blame everything on the destiny Jonghyun doesn’t believe in. Not that Jonghyun will argue with anything they say. He's long out of legs to stand on.

Mingi has the taste of champagne on his tongue, and he’s doing his absolute best to not latch onto the nearest member he sees—Aron, over there is Aron—and go back home.

It gets better once one of their stylists comes over, because she doesn’t congratulate him or tell him _it’s_ _too bad_ , and in fact, doesn’t mention the album at all. Mingi finally can stomach some more of his drink.

Food is a different story, and after the party, as Mingi finally wipes the makeup off his face, he tries to forget how the makeup noonas kept mentioning how his face had thinned. Mingi had played dumb about why.

The rest of them lay together on the carpet. Mingi has Aron’s head on his lap and Dongho’s arm under his own head, and being tangled together brings some comfort. It isn’t much, but it keeps the silence from screaming as Jonghyun retires to his room with a mumbled “good night” that no one bothers to answer. Mingi worries for a split second, but soon enough, the muffled sounds of an anime start. For tonight, that’s good enough.

Dongho falls asleep first, because he’d been drinking. He shifts, and Mingi raises his head so Dongho can flip over and lay flat on his back.

From how Minhyun is watching Dongho, Mingi bets he’ll soon wake Dongho up so he goes to sleep in his actual bed. That, or Dongho will wake in the morning still on the floor and with Minhyun curled tightly against his chest. 

Aron is on his phone, messaging someone half the world away. Or messaging Joel. Probably Joel.

Mingi drowns in loneliness, surrounded by his closest friends, his _family_ , and still hopelessly alone. He wiggles out from under Aron and goes to his own room. Only once he reaches it does he realize he never told them goodnight or bye or anything. Mingi lays on his back, with the cracked ceiling above him, then curls up under his blanket. It doesn't make things better. The silence is as loud as a full orchestra.

He’s finally nearing sleep when a hand pushes at his shoulder. Mingi buries his head into his pillow and groans.

“Hey,” Jonghyun says. Another nudge. “You didn’t eat anything tonight. Eat with me.”

“You don’t know what I ate,” Mingi grumbles, even though Jonghyun has always been weirdly good at knowing that stuff.

“Eat with me,” Jonghyun says again. He nudges Mingi another time, and maybe he’s lonely too. He doesn’t have a soulmate to go to either, instead relying on his closest friends. It's been a long time since Jonghyun bothered him in the middle of the night.

Mingi follows Jonghyun toward their kitchen. Aron is no longer on the floor, but Minhyun and Dongho are fast asleep together. Time has taken on a dreamy quality. swirling around their ankles. It could be midnight, it could be five A.M. Most likely, they are suspended, unmoving, somewhere in between. 

Jonghyun leads him to a small pile of cheap convenience store food on their kitchen counter.

“When did you even buy this?” Their budget has little maneuverability in it. Mingi spots some chocolate milk, and knows Jonghyun planned this from the start because Jonghyun doesn’t even like chocolate milk.

Jonghyun had also gotten pretzels, another one of Mingi’s favorites. He’d wanted to share this with Mingi.

“When did you buy this?” Mingi asks again, but it sounds a little different this time.

“We deserve nice things sometimes.”

Before Mingi can answer, Dongho lets out a giant snore from the other room, followed by a loud groan from Minhyun. Mingi and Jonghyun both choke on their giggles to avoid disturbing Minhyun’s sleep even worse.

“Yes,” Mingi says, breathless from holding his laughter back. “Yes, we deserve nice things.”

Jonghyun cracks open a carton of normal milk, and holds it up for a cheer. Mingi matches him with his chocolate milk, and they’re half-dressed on the floor of their kitchen, with Mingi in pajama pants and an ancient, stretched tank top and Jonghyun in shorts and a tent-like old t-shirt. His blue hair is messily parted somewhere near the middle, his eyes are puffy from exhaustion.

“Cheers,” Jonghyun says, with a goofy grin, and he goes to take a sip, but Mingi doesn’t.

He has always found Jonghyun beautiful, but tonight, in this weird, unreal world with only the two of them, Mingi swears he could look at Jonghyun forever.

Except as Jonghyun takes a long drink of milk, the taste explodes in Mingi’s mouth.

What.

Jonghyun’s throat works, and so does Mingi’s, but no liquid runs down it.

What.

Jonghyun’s eyebrows furrow. He hadn’t been careful, and now he uses the back of his hand to wipe a stray drop of milk running toward his chin. “Did you like it?” he asks. He thinks Mingi has taken a sip too.

Mingi wants to answer, but thoughts stream through his head too quickly for anything to leave his mouth. Jonghyun doesn’t have a soulmate, but soulmates are always a match.

Jonghyun doesn’t have a soulmate, but Mingi still has the taste of milk in his mouth.

“Are you okay?” Jonghyun asks. He sounds almost wary now, like he knows his secret is on the line. Like something big just happened. Mingi takes a sip of chocolate milk because he can’t bear to taste Jonghyun’s anymore.

“Jonghyun…”

_Jonghyun, tell me I’m crazy._

_Jonghyun, this is a miracle._

But Jonghyun’s gaze drops to the floor. His fingers tighten on the carton.

“Can we…not tonight?” he asks, and fidgets like he’s ashamed. “I know… I know tonight was bad, but please. Let’s have a good time right now. I bought you all this.”

It takes Mingi a moment to realize Jonghyun isn’t talking about the same thing Mingi wants to, and Mingi wants to correct him, wants to tell him what just happened, and what it means, and how Mingi has never thought about spending his entire life loving Jonghyun, but he thinks he maybe could.

This is a good thing. Jonghyun wants to hear about it.

Except Jonghyun doesn’t have a soulmate. Jonghyun has stood so strongly for people without soulmates in the past couple years. It matters to him, to tell the tiny spattering of people who bother to listen to him that there are other options.

And Jonghyun looks so tired. Mingi had not tasted anything during the party, so Jonghyun hadn’t eaten yet. His eyes plead with Mingi to let whatever it is go, to just eat and enjoy this moment. 

Mingi grabs a choco pie. He pushes it into Jonghyun’s hands. “Try this,” he demands, like Jonghyun’s never had one before.

Jonghyun looks grateful, and Mingi thinks he might throw up.

Mingi _knows_ , and then it's gone. In the moment, he’d have given Jonghyun everything he asked for, but after it… after it, Mingi questions everything. He doesn't like to think badly of his bandmates, but the evidence is sky-high.

Most people who lose their soulmates remember the exact day they stopped tasting anything, because you worry when your soulmate doesn't eat for an entire day. The fear increases when one day becomes two, becomes three, and a week, and a month and… eventually, you stop deluding yourself. Your soulmate is gone. 

And then… grief counselors. Therapy. You lost the single person you were fated to spend your entire life with. Why did fate do this to you? Isn’t it a mistake?

How can you grieve for a soulmate you never knew and will never know?

Jonghyun has never told them the day, and he never brings up his deceased soulmate. The couple times Mingi has bothered to think about it at all, he assumed Jonghyun is different, because Jonghyun knows other options are out there, but that isn't right. Jonghyun’s soulmate should have mattered to him as much as anyone else’s did. You can't reason grief away.

When Mingi thinks about that time, he remembers Jonghyun greatly regretting how his words had affected NU’EST, but not even mentioning how losing his soulmate affected him.

Mingi knows why now.

The evidence is clear, the evidence is damning.

Jonghyun had never lost his soulmate. He’d only pretended to. 

Confronting someone you love about something important is never easy. Mingi doesn't know how to feel about Jonghyun, how to think about what he knows Jonghyun did. He doesn't understand.

It's easier to double-check first. Just in case. .

Mingi selects a day where they plan to practice for a long time, even though it's a bad day to be distracted. They’ll soon stand on a foreign stage where few people will find sympathy for them, fractured into four individuals instead of one team.

For the first time in years, Mingi needs to rest his future on something that doesn’t immediately, instantly have the name NU’EST attached, and he doesn't know how. As a person, he’s got NU’EST attached. For better or worse.

It says a lot that it’s simpler to focus on Jonghyun.

Mingi’s plan is breathtakingly simple. There are many foods Jonghyun avoids, but only one he hates with a powerful passion.

Mingi buys a whole container of red grape tomatoes, and he eats a single tomato on each of their breaks. He hides the container carefully, but no one pays him much mind anyway. It’s all too easy.

After the first, Jonghyun grimaces a bit. He doesn’t complain. Soon after, he starts drinking more water and washing his mouth out. The efforts don’t seem to amount to much. Mingi keeps eating them.

He’s proven it by then, multiple times over, but Mingi wants Jonghyun to say it. If he comes clean, Mingi won't need to confront him at all.

Opportunity comes when Jonghyun is visibly grimacing, and Minhyun checks in on him. He does it in a very _Minhyun_ way, going in close to Jonghyun and resting a hand on his shoulder, looking down at Jonghyun with his unblinking eyes.

Mingi watches gleefully. _Say it. Say it. Say it’s your soulmate eating tomatoes, and you hate tomatoes._

“I didn’t say take a break.” Jonghyun jerks out from Minhyun’s grasp so roughly he nearly clocks his shoulder against the mirror. “You have to _focus_. Do you even want to do this?”

Mingi’s entire body goes numb. Dongho’s head snaps up to look at Jonghyun. Minhyun is Minhyun, and so takes the sharp words with an enviable calmness, but Mingi’s heart sticks to the soles of his shoes.

“There’s no point in us trying this if we don’t give it our all,” Jonghyun says next, like they don’t already know that.

“We’ll do it again,” Minhyun says, which is as close to an olive branch as he’ll toss Jonghyun when he knows Jonghyun is being unfair.

Jonghyun doesn’t apologize. Instead, he washes his mouth out again, fingers clenched so tightly to his water bottle that his knuckles turn pale. Mingi scrambles into position and pretends not to see how Minhyun stares at the ground. Minhyun may not be one for intense shows of anger or sadness, but it’s a mistake to think things don’t hurt him all the same.

He and Jonghyun don’t say a word to each other for the rest of the day, and Mingi knows he just fractured their group even further.

He never wants to see a tomato again.

NOW

Apartment searching sucked, and becoming Jamie was a reprieve. It was a chance to shuck off all his worries and drown in Jamie’s lights-camera-action attitude. Being him was so damn fun and hard and _rewarding_. Mingi couldn’t get enough of it.

The acoustics of a theater stage weren't dissimilar to what Mingi was used to, but as a first-timer, they had him practice on a real stage as soon as possible. This stage wasn't the one he'd perform on, but it worked all the same. Mingi’s entire body tingled as he stood smack-dab in the middle, chock-full of _Jamie_ , and sang.

Mingi's castmates were so talented, it had originally been daunting to stand beside them, but they were also friendly, and helpful. Experienced musical actors, fantastic singers, the drag queen who'd helped Mingi better encompass his character. They all gulped up their respective spotlights, and even when the lights were low, they still glowed. Mingi was glad they allowed him into their light, and let him cultivate his own, too.

Hakmin, Mingi's stage manager friend, the one who Mingi had caught staring and had been so filled with Jamie's confidence that he'd gone over and said hello, was different. His plain black t-shirts didn't exactly catch the light, and he had a habit of hiding his laughs behind his hand. As the stage manager, he was everywhere and nowhere, omnipresent and yet invisible, capable of enough jobs that Mingi would believe you if you told him Hakmin split his tasks with a secret twin brother.

Hakmin's light came in glints and flashes. You needed to be at the right angle to see it.

Mingi's first chance to sing on stage left him dizzy with reality. It had been the last thing on their practice itinerary, and so Mingi didn't feel bad for lingering behind. He was alone now, and for the first time since the practices started, Mingi could feel himself shining. It was a different kind of light from being an idol. Mingi had realized that back during Minhyun's musical, but experiencing it for himself was something else.

He sang one of the more meaningful songs of the musical, the one from Jamie's darkest moment, and he set his eyes to the center of the empty audience and poured himself into the performance, until he stood centerstage, hands clutched to his heaving chest.

Someone began to clap. Hakmin was collapsed in one of the front row seats, his classic black shirt stained with wood dust. They'd been working hard to finish building the set recently.

"Take a bow already," Hakmin said. "You're holding up the show."

"Maybe I don't want it to end," Mingi said breathlessly.

"That's because the lights aren't on. Otherwise you'd be boiling." The line of stage lights directly above Mingi were full of different colored bulbs. He tried to imagine how his skin would absorb the warm reds and yellows. How he'd glow.

"You could turn them on for me," Mingi said. It was totally a joke. Totally a joke, because he knew how stage lights worked—you couldn’t see shit when they focused on you—but Mingi did ache for the heat against his face.

"Hell no," Hakmin said. "They take forever just to turn on." He stood, and his head was about level with Mingi's calf. Mingi plopped down, his legs swinging over the edge of the stage.

“You still haven’t bowed,” Hakmin pointed out instead.

“Fine, for my no-audience.” Mingi didn’t bother to stand, but he stuck his arms out straight to the sides and bent over the best he could with both legs dangling.

“I’m your audience,” Hakmin said. He mimed holding a camera with his index fingers and thumbs and clicked a couple fake photos. "For my memories," he said, and something about that reminded Mingi of Jonghyun. It was a sudden association, arriving without warning. A weird connection. Hakmin and Jonghyun were nothing alike, but Mingi had found himself comparing them recently. He shook Jonghyun from his mind.

"You want to remember this?" Mingi asked Hakmin. He lowered himself back so he was propped up on his elbows.

"I want to remember you." It was weirdly serious. Something in the back of Mingi's mind vyed for his attention. He ignored it.

"You will," Mingi said and flashed Hakmin the haughtiest smirk he could muster.

Hakmin raised his fake camera again. "Then give me something to," he said.

Mingi struck such a ridiculous pose it would get him scolded by any photographer worth anything. Hakmin laughed. "Ladies and Gentlemen, the Vogue cover model right here."

Butterflies flittered around pleasantly in Mingi's stomach. "You heard about that?" He'd only just found out he and the other Jamies would do a Vogue shoot.

"You're gonna kill it," Hakmin said. "I mean, unless you do that again." He waved a hand vaguely. Mingi tilted his head back as he laughed. He readjusted his position at the edge of the stage and struck a pose more similar to what he'd do in a fashion shoot. It still wouldn't look good right now, not with him in black trainers and a long white t-shirt, but he hit the expression at least.

"Fuck, you're hot." Hakmin held up a hand as though to shield his eyes from the sun. "Warn me next time."

The compliment caught Mingi off guard. Again, Jonghyun flitted at the corner of his consciousness. Hakmin had called Mingi attractive the first time they'd talked, but Mingi heard that often enough that he'd disregarded it. The thing was, Hakmin hadn't really stopped complimenting Mingi. Not even once they became friends.

Neither of them had mentioned having a soulmate, and for the first time, Mingi wondered if he'd misread Hakmin's intentions. It wasn't like Mingi had never flirted with someone before, but most times you either had a frank talk about soulmates upfront or you weren't looking for much more than a night together. Hakmin...didn't fit either.

He held out a hand to help Mingi hop offstage. Mingi took it. Whatever. Jonghyun had made things complicated enough for Mingi recently. He didn't get to ruin relationships entirely unrelated to him too.

"When you really perform, I'll bring you a flower," Hakmin told him, and this was Mingi's chance to draw a quick line in the sand, an off-handed comment about how Hakmin likely wouldn't be the only one, because Mingi's soulmate might do the same.

But Jonghyun wouldn't bring him a flower. He didn't even want to spend time with Mingi outside of what they had to. He wanted to move out.

"Not a rose," Mingi requested. "Make it something interesting."

Hakmin laughed, and Mingi's heart fluttered about his chest, and none of this felt wrong.

Was this what it was like to choose your own fate? Trying something you'd never done before when everything you were supposed to do wasn't working, all while playing a boy who chased his dreams and kissed a boy that wasn't his soulmate along the way?

It felt gross to use Jonghyun's own words to choose against him, but if Jonghyun could lie to the whole world to advocate for it, then surely Mingi could take his advice. 

Things felt progressively less good as Mingi approached the dorm. He tried to sneak by Jonghyun's room and enter his own, but fate had other plans. Jonghyun's bedroom door nearly collided with Mingi when he opened it, and Mingi silently cursed that Jonghyun had caught him, then cringed. A wave of _holy fuck_ sent him spiraling back into the wash. In nine years of knowing Jonghyun, he’d never tried to avoid him this hard.

“I thought you’d get back soon,” Jonghyun said. Mingi dug his nails into the skin of his palm. Jonghyun had come out specifically for Mingi, after Mingi had spent the afternoon practicing and flirting with another boy. As Jonghyun tentatively smiled, Mingi’s guilt could move mountains. Things hadn’t been right between them since they'd talked about moving out. Clearly.

“How’s gaming going?” Mingi asked. A safe topic.

“I’m editing, actually.” Jonghyun held up a hand with a sheepish smile. He had ink stains across his fingers, because he liked to write lyrics over and over by hand and scribble all across the page as he went.

“And not holed up with Dongho? Wow.” There was only a couple months until their next comeback, and while Dongho was always in the studio, the timing meant Jonghyun had begun to join him more and more often.

“How was practice?” Jonghyun asked.

“I fell dramatically to the floor and for once it was for a scene and not because I fell in heels.”

Jonghyun laughed, just like Mingi had known he would. He was wrapped in an oversized hoodie, and he stretched his arms so the material pulled taut. It made him look like a child. “And the guy you met…y’know, the one you caught staring?”

Fuck. Mingi had forgotten he’d started to tell Jonghyun how he and Hakmin met. “Hakmin? What about him?” He shot for casual, and didn’t land right. It was weird that Jonghyun remembered this so specifically, but Mingi guessed meeting someone new because you got curious about how shamelessly they were watching you dance wasn't the most common of occurrences. 

“Are you still talking with him?” If Jonghyun stretched his hoodie any further, he’d rip the pocket.

“He’s my friend.”

“Is he there a lot?”

“He’s the stage manager.”

Jonghyun nodded a couple times, his eyes everywhere but meeting Mingi's. This was so _weird_. Mingi hated it. “Are you busy tonight? I was thinking we could—”

“I told Aron I’d spend the night at his place.” Mingi had told Aron absolutely nothing like that, but he was going to combust if he didn’t get out of the most awkward conversation he and Jonghyun had ever had.

“Oh,” Jonghyun said. Mingi would not feel guilty. Mingi did not feel guilty. Jonghyun looked down their hallway like he might find something there. “Maybe I will go find Dongho, then.”

He really had only been at the dorm for Mingi.

Mingi utilized one of the things he’d learned from musical practice, and got the fuck off stage.

THEN

They’re supposed to be getting in the car, and leaving Aron behind. It’s the first day of filming, and Mingi has never been less prepared for something in his entire life. He presses his shoulder tightly to Aron’s. How do you say goodbye to someone you’ve known forever?

Mingi isn’t the only one who lingers. All five of them stare at each other, waiting for someone to speak. In the end that responsibility, like so many others, falls on Jonghyun.

He doesn't say that this isn't the path they wanted to walk but the one they had to, because they already all know that. He doesn't say this sucks or that they'll all miss Aron because they already know.

“We’re going to do this," he says. Not 'we'll succeed.' Not 'we'll kill it.' Just, matter-of-factly, they will do this. It's too late to back out. Then he adds, "we're in charge of our own fate."

We're in charge of our own fate. What a _joke,_ Mingi thinks. He doesn't know how Jonghyun can still believe it, especially not when he's hiding behind his own lies.

It's clear the rest of them don't believe Jonghyun either, no matter that the line is the closest thing they've got to a mantra. They're disillusioned with themselves, with fate, with their chance at staying as NU'EST. They've got makeup on for the first time in forever, and they'd just filmed a New Years greeting for their fans, and now they're about to film interviews for a show that wants to chew them up and eat them alive. They're in control of nothing, least of all their own fate.

But Jonghyun isn't saying anything else, and no one else is stepping in. They can't leave it here, while they're standing together as five and yet not together at all. Mingi wouldn't be able to stand it if this is how they say goodbye to Aron.

And so he steps in. Even though he has more reason than anyone in the entire world to doubt Jonghyun, Mingi steps in. He wraps his arms around as much of NU'EST as he can hold—Aron, who will return to the dorm alone, Dongho, who Mingi knows didn’t sleep a wink last night, and Minhyun, just barely, just by the sleeve of his shirt. It’s enough, Mingi thinks. He hopes. He tries to remember what it’s like to dream.

Mingi can’t reach Jonghyun, so he locks eyes with him instead. His soulmate. His leader. The boy who'd been doing his damned best since he was a teenager, and the man who'd lied to Mingi's face so many times.

"We're in charge of our own fate," Mingi repeats. "Let's get it."

And he would never regret what he did, but Mingi would remember it often. The path of knowing too much and choosing to tell no one had proven to be a lonely one, even after it turned out that Jonghyun had been right all along.

They truly had chosen their own fate as NU'EST, and Mingi had chosen his own, too. He was an expert on everything Jonghyun was, and everything he wasn't, and Mingi had chosen to stand behind him anyway. For better, or for worse.

NOW

Aron’s bed was quite nice, even if he couldn’t keep the dog hair off it. Mingi was flat on his stomach, his legs spread to cover most of the mattress. So far, he’d spoke to Aron little, but now Aron had finally slung a leg over Mingi's and laid down beside him. He smushed his cheek against his palm.

“So why are you here?” he asked.

“I'm visiting.”

“You barely said hi, and are now laying on my bed. What’s up?”

Mingi shrugged. He really wasn’t playing hard to get here; he genuinely didn’t know what to say. Aron didn’t know about Mingi and Jonghyun. He wouldn’t understand how impossibly guilty Mingi felt for literally everything. A few minutes earlier, Mingi had heard Aron and Joel’s hushed voices, as they likely talked about why Mingi had shown up clearly mid-crisis.

Aron threaded one of their hands together and rested it near his face. Mingi tried his best to smile at him. It wasn’t his fault he didn’t know what was going on.

“I made a friend at practice,” Mingi said. “His name’s Hakmin.”

“Another Jamie?”

“Stage manager,” Mingi corrected.

“And…that’s a bad thing?”

Mingi would never tell Aron the truth. No one should have to hold _Jonghyun_ and _Liar_ together in their head. It put you in a bad place. It turned you into a liar too.

“He’s…well. He.” Mingi dug his chin into the pillow. His hair blocked his view. It was longer now than it had been in years, and the fans kept hoping the length was intentional, but truthfully, it had gotten away from Mingi. “He’s not my soulmate,” Mingi said finally. Lowly. Like he was confessing a secret.

“Ah.” Mingi turned so his face pressed into the pillow. Aron had seen through him so quickly. “You like him?”

Yes. No. It would be so much simpler if he did; it would be so much more complicated to give up on Jonghyun for good and still see him every day. “I could, maybe," Mingi said.

“It sounds like you feel something about him.”

“He’s not my soulmate.”

“So?” Aron asked. “Are you really in my house just to hear me tell you it’s okay to date other people?”

“I’ve got a romantic soulmate,” Mingi said.

“You don’t know that.”

Mingi didn’t answer, and Aron came even closer. This was dangerously in the territory of making Mingi want to tell him everything. It was a lonely existence, pressing your back tightly against someone else’s closet of dark secrets and being left there all alone with them.

“There’s nothing wrong with seeing where things go with Hakmin,” Aron said. “If it feels right.”

It could have maybe felt right, if Jonghyun wasn’t in the picture. But trying to divide Jonghyun from Mingi’s life felt a little like removing one of his own limbs.

“You have it hard,” Aron said. “Not knowing who your soulmate is. But you’ll find them when it’s right. Keep looking, but don’t turn away from—”

“He wants nothing to do with me.”

“…Hakmin?”

“My soulmate. I’m not looking for him.”

“Mingi…”

“I know what you’re going to say, and I’m right.”

“You know who it is?” Aron asked. “Have you talked to him?”

Yes. No. Mingi had vowed to tell Jonghyun by their anniversary, a whopping month away. He’d first imagined it would change everything: a clean slate, an opportunity for Jonghyun to realize there was no reason to denounce the concept of soulmates because Mingi loved him.

But while Mingi was tired of all his secrets, it was the secrets he'd kept from himself that exhausted him the most.

Jonghyun was more in-tune with Mingi than any other person Mingi had ever known. With the smallest prompt from an interviewer, Jonghyun could summon facts about Mingi that were news even to him.

What a big, fat joke it was to pretend Jonghyun wasn’t well aware that Mingi was his soulmate. _Bet you didn't expect that, huh?_

“He knows,” Mingi said. “He just doesn’t want me.”

Mingi might not be able to regurgitate the way Jonghyun scratches his nose if asked, but he knew him well enough for this.

If Mingi did try to tell him, Jonghyun would not be surprised. It was the elephant that lived in the dorm with them, the one they'd never addressed. Mingi was naive to believe that mentioning it explicitly would change anything.

“I’m sorry,” Aron said.

"I'm still going to talk to him one more time about it," Mingi said. "But it won't change anything." Maybe Mingi finally really would bring it up if he stopped deluding himself about what the result would be.

"I'm here for you," Aron said. "Whenever you need it." He didn't tell Mingi that he could talk to him about anything, but Mingi heard it all the same, and knew he couldn't take Aron up on it.

It was such a lonely thing, keeping someone else's secret. Knowing that the thing that had driven them forward, the mantra they still sometimes told each other after hard times and big successes, was built on lies.

Sometimes it made you wonder if your success was built entirely on lies too.

NUEST MONTH @bamsaemp3

whyyyy are kloves talking about jonghyuns produce sc*ndal we have progressed past the need to bring up jonghyuns produce sc*ndal

NUEST MONTH @bamsaemp3

_Replying to @bamsaemp3_

no more jonghyun produce sc*ndal! let’s all pretend ‘nuest soulmate’ never trended and the public found out about yeobeoseyo some other way!

stan keembo @nubaektome

_Replying to @bamsaemp3_

idk it still sends that jonghyuns such a good person that even his scandal brought nuest more fans

NUEST MONTH @bamsaemp3

_Replying to @nubacktome_

i cried for 5 days straight over it lmaoooo it might have worked out but it wasnt a good time and also it was definitely traumatic af for him first having to film a message to his soulmate then fucking apologize for not having a soulmate 

\--

It seemed fitting, that the entire world should fall apart while Mingi personally fell apart, but Mingi also felt guilty for thinking that. People were dying.

And then Mingi didn't have any time to think at all about the world, because his own world shattered. Suddenly, he was in Busan, struggling to hold himself together, struggling to hold his family together. Failing to stop the sensation that everything that mattered to him was slipping through his fingers.

March fifteenth passes quietly. Mingi receives supportive messages from his members, and replies to all but one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i got so into worldbuilding for this that i had to go on the produce 101 season 2 wikipedia page
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/turtledovejr) | [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/overprimrose)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “We deserve good things sometimes."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the interview near the end of this chapter has some of a real-life interview in it, translation by @Melodia_muse, but there's also fake text weaved in

Their story is surprisingly simple. When a cameraman pulls Jonghyun aside to film a message to his soulmate, he does. Just like the rest of them.

Within hours of the video’s release, it blows up that Kim Jonghyun lied and Kim Jonghyun has no soulmate and words like ‘scandal’ fly through the thirty-five remaining trainees.

Jonghyun apologizes. He tells the National Producers that he will work hard to be deserving of their love. Accidentally or not, it sounds a whole lot like he’s saying that as someone without a soulmate, he’ll work hard to still deserve love.

His rank falls. Trainees whisper about it—from first place to barely making the top twenty, the short rise and ultimate fall of Kim Jonghyun.

They don’t know it yet, but as they prepare for the finale, NU’EST videos resurface online, reposted by fans or dredged up by antis or discovered by anyone interested enough to tear deeper into Jonghyun. In a Heyo TV clip, Jonghyun describes love as between any two people who care for each other, and does not mention soulmates. In another, Jonghyun looks painfully young as he explains how much he likes _Yeoboseyo’s_ concept, and in one even older, Jonghyun is seventeen and laughing awkwardly as he describes his ideal soulmate.

‘Kim Jonghyun’ and ‘soulmate’ trend on Naver. _Yeoboseyo_ rises on Melon. Fans analyze how tragic Jonghyun’s soulmate message is, now aware that he's speaking to a grave.

_I’ll continue to eat well for you. I love you._

Love pours toward an idol who seems unsure whether he deserves any, and Kim Jonghyun is supposed to have the reversal of a lifetime. He’s supposed to, and he does, but it’s not like anyone expects.

The night of the finale, Minhyun cries. The rest of them don’t.

Afterward, they gather with their staff to toast their final attempt to keep NU’EST alive, and to finally lay it to rest. It’s dawn when they realize what’s happening. _Yeoboseyo_ had never truly fallen from Melon, but now Canvas is there with it. Jonghyun’s name trends again, but this time, it’s with NU’EST.

They say goodbye to Minhyun, for now. They come up with NU’EST W. The world tells them they deserve everything, that their destiny has finally been realized.

Deep inside, they remember that this is their fate because they have chosen it.

[EXCERPT] 171022 NU’EST W is the group that defied all odds, took their first win at a music show six years after debut

Leader JR had some thoughts about how NU’EST W overcame their struggles. "Rather than fate or destiny, I believe in myself and my members. I often tell my members ‘we are in charge of our own fate.’ I believe it was this that made us able to put aside our pride and make difficult choices."

Congratulations to NU’EST W!

(slow) 🌸 @hyunsdaybreak

the day stan twt realizes jonghyun is more than the idol without a soulmate or the one robbed by produce >>>>

(slow) 🌸 @hyunsdaybreak

yall want to pity jonghyun so bad like !! hes happy and nu’est are a top 5 bg die mad about it

THEN

The world treats them so differently, it’s hard to believe it’s the same world at all. It feels like they stood up and opened their chests to show the world their hearts, and the world embraced them. All of them. Aron included.

Technically, the company party to celebrate the successful end to promotions should not have changed, but realistically, it could not be more dissimilar. _Where You At_ promotions were a different world, and as Mingi stands with a glass of champagne in hand, the buzz of excitement enveloping him, he can almost forget that these are the same executives who nearly pulled the plug on NU’EST. Almost.

The memories brush against his skin as he takes in the sincere congratulations and compliments, a subtle reminder that the only people he can rely on are his members. They lead his feet in Dongho’s direction, as Dongho swirls a glass of champagne around to imply he’s drinking it, laughing about something with Bumzu. Mingi’s glad to see him smiling. Things have been difficult for him recently, and being separated from his soulmate doesn’t help.

Before he can reach Dongho, someone calls Mingi’s name. Their old manager waves him over to where he and Jonghyun are talking.

“It’s been so long,” Mingi says to Taesong. The man who scouted him had not crossed Mingi’s mind in ages. The last time they’d worked with him had been…2013? Maybe?

“I was just telling Jonghyun—” As Taesong says his name, he wraps an arm around Jonghyun’s shoulders, and Jonghyun shoots Mingi a look that so blatantly asks for help, Mingi fears what’s about to come out of Taesong’s mouth—“I always believed in you guys.” Ah. There it is. Mingi does not want to be jaded, but isn’t it so easy to have always believed in them now that they have created their own success?

“I don’t know if you remember, Jonghyun,” Taesong goes on. Somehow, Jonghyun manages to extract himself from Taesong’s arm while still seeming to invite him to go on. “When I first scouted you, I went to your school because I dreamed I’d find the perfect trainee there. I knew I had to start there.” Taesong looks at Jonghyun with all the sincerity a drunken man can muster. Mingi regrets his earlier cruel thoughts.

“I remember,” Jonghyun says, but his smile has the distinct edge it gains whenever he’s humoring someone.

“You all deserve this, yeah?” Taesong goes on. “All of it.”

Jonghyun’s eyes slide sideways to meet Mingi’s, and Mingi has to swallow a burst of laughter. They had been scared of this man once.

Now look at him, as he drunkenly praises them for their success. It’s so ridiculous; this night is so ridiculous. It all feels so good.

Mingi is sweating from the party and the drinks and the thrill of being certain they deserve every praise they hear, so when they finally excuse themselves from Taesong, he pulls Jonghyun outside to the rooftop. The chilly fall wind bites into them, but Mingi doesn’t retreat. Jonghyun presses against him.

The small outdoor area is meant for smokers, and the smell lingers despite them being alone. Above, the Seoul lights have obscured the stars even on this clear night, casting a reddish haze over the entire sky. It doesn’t matter to Mingi. They’ll make their own damn stars.

“Did that really happen?” he asks Jonghyun. “The dream?”

“He said something like it, back then.”

“You never told us.”

“People make their dreams mean anything. He wasn’t going around saying that last year.”

There’s a bitter tinge to Jonghyun’s voice that Mingi understands but doesn’t like. They’ve come too far for bitterness, in Mingi’s opinion. They’ve experienced too much pain to create more for themselves.

“He doesn’t mean anything by it.”

“It discredits what we’ve done.”

“You really hate when anyone brings up fate.”

Instead of answering, Jonghyun hooks his chin on Mingi’s shoulder. His breath tickles his ear. It’s been a minute since they’ve had a moment like this to themselves. The exhaustion from promotions and all the emotions that came with them weigh heavily in Mingi’s bones.

“This is some night, huh?” Jonghyun murmurs. Mingi breathes out sharply and pretends it passes for a huff of laughter.

“It’s a good night,” he says, with more resolve than he feels. “I mean, we did it.”

It’s hard to remember this isn’t some fleeting success. That they deserve this. And the second Mingi does manage to convince himself that’s true, he remembers that it all happened because of a lie.

Most of Mingi’s guilt over that comes from how not-guilty he feels. Because deep down, he thinks they do deserve a chance to show the world who they are. But Jonghyun has always been a better person than him, and Mingi’s worried about how Jonghyun is handling it.

He’s trying to bear it alone, but the first thing people learn about NU’EST is that Jonghyun has no soulmate. Mingi knows Aron reached out to make sure Jonghyun is handling it okay. He has no idea what Jonghyun said.

Mingi does feel guilty that the other members don't know. The weight of Jonghyun’s secret is heavy even to Mingi, who must witness all of it. It has to be crushing Jonghyun.

“I keep thinking—” Mingi starts, and then falters. Jonghyun waits to him to gather his thoughts. “This is our second chance. Another chance to be together, yeah, but, more than that. We get to show people who we are all over again, and this time...”

There are a lot of ways to finish that, and Mingi can’t choose one. This time things will be different. This time it will work and people will listen.

_This time you don’t have to bear the weight alone, Kim Jonghyun. We’re a team. Don’t you understand what that means by now?_

“This time we know who we are,” Jonghyun says. He’s always been better at words than Mingi, and needs fewer of them.

“This time we know who we are,” Mingi repeats. It wasn’t what any of the things he’d planned to say, but he likes the feeling those words create in his chest. “Yeah. So things can be different, if you want them to be. Anything. Okay?”

Jonghyun sits up, but it’s too cold for him to move away. Their sides brush together. Mingi tries his hardest not to steal looks at him. His soulmate and him, alone with the starless red sky.

“You didn’t eat tonight,” Mingi says. He realizes, vaguely, that he’s said the exact same words Jonghyun told him over a year ago. It’s a testament to how many times he’s thought about that night since.

 _Things aren’t bad anymore_ , is what Mingi wants to say now. _We can talk about it_.

“A lot of people wanted to talk to me. I didn’t get a chance.” Jonghyun pulls his legs up to his chest and loops his arms around them. He rests his chin on his knees. “Felt like I was seventeen again,” he grumbles. “All worried I’d say the wrong thing and offend someone and find out a month later that’s why we didn’t get to do something we wanted to.”

With how he’s curled into himself to sulk, he looks a bit like he’s seventeen again.

“We’ll get used to it. It’s only because it’s new again,” Mingi says. He doesn’t fully believe that, and from the look Jonghyun gives him, it’s obvious Jonghyun can tell. “And we’re different from back then. We know who we are this time.”

The repetition pulls a smile from Jonghyun. He knows Mingi means it, too.

They compose their own music. They have their own sound. They know their strengths and how to play to them, and their weaknesses and how to make up for them.

“Sometimes I wish it really was a fresh start,” Jonghyun says. “Or, I don’t know. I’m not complaining, it’s just... it’s a little embarrassing, isn’t it?” 

Mingi gets it. They’ve opened their chests and shown the world their hearts, and now their chests don’t close right anymore. They’re vulnerable. They’re dependent on the world continuing to embrace them.

Jonghyun’s hiding a secret that could end them all over again.

“We’re going to make it what we want,” Mingi says firmly. “We’re going to be exactly what we want to be, and we’re going to take everything one moment at a time. No worrying about the future.”

Telling Jonghyun not to worry is like ordering the sky not to rain. But Mingi hopes he’ll try. _You don’t need to bear these weights alone, Jonghyun-ah._

“We should go back inside,” Jonghyun says.

“We could ditch and go for ice cream or something.”

Jonghyun laughs. “I thought we weren’t seventeen anymore,” he says. As he stands, he offers a hand to Mingi, who takes it. His grip is warm and certain, and Mingi is hit with such sudden affection for him that it takes his breath away.

They’ll make their own stars now. Mingi knows that. But looking into Jonghyun’s eyes, Mingi thinks he’s already found some.

hackingz supremacy @optimisthwang

antis out here like ‘jr only gets mc positions cause he can eat on shows!’ like bitch who cares hes employed and i get to watch jrie eat every week

Jess⁵ @nuestisms

Covid has me worried ill never see nuest never get to tell jonghyun how much it means to me that hes one of the only other people i know that doesn’t have a soulmate n whenever im upset i think of him

NOW

Before the world could start again, it had to stop. The days of their mandatory stay-at-home order were difficult; the last thing Mingi had wanted was to be trapped in a closed system with only Jonghyun, and that was exactly their situation.

It was also illuminating. Because Mingi wasn’t here to mess things up for NU’EST—that was literally the last thing he wanted—and unlike any time he and another member had had friction in the past, things weren’t sliding back toward normalcy. For days, he and Jonghyun barely spoke. Mingi didn’t know how to fix it, or even how he’d broken it when he’d started with such good intentions.

He’d wanted to make 2020 his year. To play the musical role he so wanted and grow more confident. To convince Jonghyun that he wanted a soulmate, that he had secretly loved Mingi this entire time, and that the thing between them was worth exploring.

Now Mingi was more alone than ever, in a world that was sputtering like an old engine, shaking as it started up again.

He had been crying at night. As they geared up for the comeback, practices ran late, and Mingi’s tears after them had become more of a release than an expression of grief or exhaustion. He tried to keep quiet.

Mingi must have failed, or at least, that was his best guess at an explanation, on the morning he woke up sweaty and with one arm pinned under a sleeping body. Jonghyun had snuck into Mingi’s bed during the night.

It had been a while since this last happened. Mingi tried to shift into a more comfortable position, then thought better of it. If Jonghyun woke up, he’d probably leave.

He had a long history of appearing in Mingi’s bed like this. It used to happen back when they were roommates: Mingi would push him too far, Jonghyun would snap at him, and Mingi would wake up with Jonghyun curled around him. He’d found it endearing, Jonghyun’s silent apology. Jonghyun put a lot of weight on his words, so sometimes speaking through actions was easier for him.

Mingi wished it was that simple this time. That this could work as a restart button. Jonghyun was a familiar weight in his arms, and Mingi’s heart was putty. He hadn’t realized how much he had missed Jonghyun’s touch.

“What are you doing here?” Mingi asked softly. Jonghyun did not stir. He had always made sleep look enviable, calm and still and pliant, with none of Aron’s uneasiness or Dongho’s imitation of death. “You know if we don’t talk, things won’t get better, right?”

No answer, of course. Mingi watched Jonghyun through his eyelashes until sleep took him again.

It almost wasn’t a surprise when Mingi woke up alone. He almost wasn’t even disappointed. Instead, he dragged himself from bed, and prepared for a morning of packing. They had less than two weeks until their lease was up, and then only a few days until their comeback. The schedule wouldn’t be easy.

Mingi’s room had come along nicely, and though he didn’t know for sure, he bet Jonghyun was packing too. Mingi didn’t want to risk running into him in their common areas. That left one option for where to work: the one they’d used as storage for excess fangifts for the past year and a half.

The storage room was as intimidating as it had always been, but as always, seeing the gifts that fans had given them in the past couple years brought Mingi’s spirits up. He had so much love in his life.

The gifts quickly distracted him, and soon Mingi was on the floor with everything scattered around him. He’d packed a couple boxes, made a couple piles, but when Jonghyun knocked on the wall by the door, Mingi had tears in his eyes and a cute bunny stuffed animal on his lap.

“Hey,” Jonghyun said. He lingered in the doorway. 

“Come over here." Mingi had found the cutest turtle headband he’d ever seen minutes earlier. It had a tiny green and brown turtle offset on the top of it, and Mingi bet that if Jonghyun wore it when his hair was messy, the turtle would swim through his hair as though in a kelp forest.

When Jonghyun sank to the floor and sat on his heels, Mingi tried out his theory. Jonghyun was in the same shorts and t-shirt he’d slept in, and he had spared no effort to style his hair, bangs haphazardly pushed from his eyes. Mingi rearranged them before he put the headband on Jonghyun.

“Isn’t it cute?” he asked, and Jonghyun closed his eyes lightly and smiled. Mingi’s hand rested on his shoulder. Was it a soulmate thing or a bandmate thing that being close to Jonghyun still offered Mingi comfort?

“You didn’t need to start this alone,” Jonghyun said.

“Trust me, there’s more for you.”

Jonghyun reached up and removed the turtle headband. “I remember this,” he said. He poked the turtle so it bobbed on its tiny metal spring.

“Sure you do.”

“It was a _Dejavu_ fansign.”

“Really? ’Cause it was in a whole bag of _Love Me_ stuff.”

“Shut up,” Jonghyun grumbled, which was such a sure sign Mingi was right that he laughed. With how rough things had been, this conversation had a lightness Mingi could get drunk on. But it seemed that Jonghyun had other plans, as his eyes flickered to Mingi’s and then back to the turtle. “We have practice soon," he said.

“What’s wrong?” Just when Mingi thought things might be better, at least for a moment.

“You haven’t eaten.”

Oh. Mingi hadn’t even thought about food, but he’d tasted Jonghyun’s lunch about an hour ago, and had vaguely thought he should eat something too at some point.

“I’ll take you out somewhere,” Jonghyun said. “Wherever you want.”

“But you have eaten.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m on a diet anyway.”

Like that meant it would be easier for Jonghyun to sit there and taste Mingi’s food. “I’ll order in. We can have a picnic.”

“In here?”

Mingi looked around at the stacks and the boxes and the room that had seen better, more organized days. “Outside,” he decided. “On the balcony.”

Mingi had ordered Jonghyun to bring a blanket out with him, and the one he’d selected was fuzzy and light brown. The two of them had forgone chairs in favor of sitting on it. The bunny stuffed animal Mingi had found earlier sat beside him.

By the time Mingi decided what to order, Jonghyun was watching him seriously, knees drawn up to his chest as he leaned against their glass door. They could see Seoul only through the metal bars that made up the railing.

“We need to talk,” he said.

 _Thank god_. Mingi wondered if this talk would encompass why Jonghyun had been in his bed this morning.

“I want to know what you want from me,” Jonghyun went on. “First you barely spoke to me outside of schedules, then you were clearly devasted I wanted to move out. I’m so _tired_ of this, Mingi.”

Despite himself, Jonghyun’s voice cracked, and he looked away to gather himself. Seoul’s skyline looked back, the reflection of the afternoon sun garish against glass windows.

“I’m tired too.” Mingi’s voice was equally quiet, and rough. He still didn’t know how to say what he wanted without it coming out as a pathetic _please want me as much as I want you_. But Jonghyun was still waiting for an answer. Now or never, Mingi guessed. Only a few hours ago, he had told Jonghyun things wouldn’t get better without this talk.

“I want you to be my soulmate,” Mingi said.

He didn’t know what to expect as a response, but it wasn’t for Jonghyun to clench his jaw like he was angry. “No, you don’t.”

“What?”

“You don’t even like when I taste anything.” Jonghyun stared out into Seoul, rather than face Mingi directly. 

“I’m helping you pretend I’m dead,” Mingi snapped. And he knew the words were cruel, but he wasn’t prepared for Jonghyun to flinch like Mingi had struck him. He had to gather himself before he could speak.

“If you can’t forgive me for something I said seven years ago, then I don’t know why you think you want me as your soulmate.” Though Jonghyun played calm, his voice had a tremor to it. 

“I don’t care about seven years ago; I care about now. Does anyone know you’ve got a living soulmate?” Jonghyun might have gotten away without mourning in front of his members, but what about his family? Had he made up a death date? Did he pretend to grieve? Mingi would die of shame if he ever lied to his family like that.

“You know what will happen if I ever admit I lied.”

“I do,” Mingi said. “But I’m not talking about that. You said you’re tired, Jonghyun, and I am too. This is the most we’ve _ever_ talked about it.”

“You hated me for it when you found out.” Jonghyun’s words were accusing, but his tone didn’t quite get there. He sounded more hurt. “You used to talk about all the meals you wanted to have with your soulmate, and then you found out it was me and made my mouth taste awful for hours.”

And Mingi had done that, hadn’t he? Not with those intentions—but with the intention to force Jonghyun to confront him, and more than a little anger. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

“I deserved it,” Jonghyun said. “I’m lying to so many people.” The words were simple and matter of fact. Jonghyun, after all these years, still judging the sum of his actions and finding himself lacking.

“Don’t say that,” Mingi scolded. “You deserved the opposite of that. I should have—I don’t know, done something better.”

Jonghyun rested his chin on his knees. “I know what I’m doing is awful. You shouldn’t pretend it’s not.”

“What are you doing that’s awful?”

“You said it already. I’m pretending you’re dead.”

“And you said that you can’t tell everyone, and I know you can’t,” Mingi said. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t tell _anyone_. You don’t have to carry this alone, Jonghyun.”

“I could tell everyone,” Jonghyun said. There was something dark in his eyes as he looked out into the city. Mingi didn’t know what to make of it.

“You won’t.”

“How do you know?” Jonghyun’s voice was barely audible. “Fans thank me for what I’ve said, all the time. And I’ve gotten letters from loves who don’t have soulmates, and they tell me I bring them comfort. Not telling is selfish.”

“Because you’d end all of our careers if you did.”

Jonghyun’s shoulders loosened, his chest slumping further over his knees. Mingi was right, and they both knew it.

“I can always come up with stuff I should have done different but never anything I can do about it,” Jonghyun said. “So I just keep ignoring it, and keep lying, and Mingi, I’m so _tired.”_

“It’s not like you talk about not having a soulmate every day." The last time Mingi remembered Jonghyun mentioning it explicitly was right after Produce. “And you tried to take it back.”

“When I apologized, I could have said I lied in 2013.”

“Then who knows what would have happened to us? What’s done is done, Jonghyun. You can’t keep lingering on it forever.”

Before he got a response, his takeout arrived. After the talk they’d had, he wasn’t exactly hungry, but Jonghyun told him to go get it.

Mingi returned with the plastic container. He sat cross-legged beside Jonghyun again, but didn’t even open it.

“Eat,” Jonghyun pushed. “You can’t practice without it.”

They were nearly out of time. Obediently, Mingi opened it, and his traitorous stomach growled. That didn’t make it easier to take the first bite when he knew Jonghyun was right there, and would taste it.

It was Jonghyun’s quiet, embarrassed ‘ah’ that got Mingi to look up. Tears had spilled down his cheeks, enough of them that it was clear he’d been holding them in for a while.

Mingi picked up a piece of chicken and held it out to him.

Jonghyun was good at sticking to diets, and Mingi almost expected him to turn it down. But Mingi could also tell he wanted it.

“We deserve good things sometimes,” Mingi told him. Jonghyun wrapped his hand around Mingi’s to help lead the meat into his mouth. His fingers were warm and certain, his eyes fixed to Mingi’s.

Since he'd just eaten, Mingi didn’t taste anything now, but he found his gaze affixed to how Jonghyun chewed and swallowed. The first meal soulmates shared was a milestone for them.

No matter how great the food your soulmate ate tasted, it wasn’t as good as the experience of eating it yourself. So when you finally sat down with your soulmate and shared a meal with them, and you both tasted the same thing together because you were both eating, it was special. Mingi had shared a million meals with Jonghyun, and this one barely counted, but it still felt different.

“You asked me what I want,” Mingi said.

Jonghyun’s face was tear-stained. His breaths kept catching in his chest. “Yeah?” he asked. He looked worried, like after all this, he thought Mingi would agree with what he’d said earlier. That Mingi didn’t want him.

“I want you to be happy, and me to be happy. And I think it’s a lot more likely we’ll get that if we figure this out together,” Mingi said. He took a breath. “But you know that already. I know you do.”

Jonghyun pressed his forehead to his knees. He looked so small like this, curled up into a ball. Mingi slipped an arm around his back, and slowly, so slowly that when it happened, they only had a couple minutes until they needed to get up, Jonghyun leaned into him.

“You know,” Mingi said. “Next time you want to sleep in my room, you don’t have to leave before I wake up.”

\--

The third time Mingi nearly fell from one of the blocky, lighted desks they needed to dance on, Jo Kwon pulled him aside. Everyone was being super kind, even though Mingi was really not killing it today, which made it worse, because Mingi was used to how Jonghyun led practice. And it wasn’t like Jonghyun wouldn’t have been nice, but he left outside problems at the practice room door and expected the rest of them to do the same. He’d get annoyed that Mingi hadn’t.

Jo Kwon was not annoyed. He was perpetually kind—like, Mingi could not imagine him being anything but kind—and now was no different. “Are you all right?” he asked.

“It sounded worse than it was,” Mingi said, which was true. The entire desk had rattled when he’d off-balanced it, but he hadn’t actually fallen.

“I know. It seems like you’ve got a lot on your mind, though.” Ah. It shouldn’t have surprised Mingi that Jo Kwon saw straight through him. They’d talked a lot in the past months. Playing Jamie was already one of the most extraordinary things Mingi had ever done, but befriending Jo Kwon was an additional benefit.

Meeting other idols could be hit or miss, depending on how much their public image differed from their true personality, but early on, Mingi had pulled Jo Kwon aside and admitted that he'd looked up to him for a long while. Jo Kwon was very good at being himself.

Since then, they’d cultivated a close friendship that led to some of the deepest talks Mingi had had in a long while. He was so damn grateful.

Unfortunately, it would take longer than their practice to explain what was going on in Mingi’s head right now. “I’m fine,” he said. “Just tired.” Jo Kwon and MJ both intimately knew the stress of a comeback, so neither of them contested that. The staff had told Mingi he didn’t need to be at this practice, but he’d come anyway. It beat hours of wondering if he should confront Jonghyun again, or give him time. 

The worst part was that he’d been right. For a while, Mingi had done great. He’d picked the new steps up easily enough and hadn’t collided with anyone—musicals had _so many people_ on stage—and he’d lost himself in being Jamie. Like he had so many times before.

As Mingi practiced, he tried to keep the discussions they’d had about Jamie’s character in his mind. He tried to become Jamie, the seventeen-year-old who knew what he wanted and was willing to pursue it.

The seventeen-year-old who buried uncertainty under bravado and who was selfish sometimes but learned how to give back to those who loved him.

Mingi connected with him so easily. He liked this story, this story about a boy who knew he was meant to be great and tried his best to be himself and did it all wrong. Then when he approached it again—approached it differently—it worked out.

Jo Kwon had been the one who said Mingi probably related because he understood what it was like to have a second chance.

And it was true. Because no one did second chances like NU’EST. No one had a revival like them, or another chance to show the world who they were, and this time do it better.

It was far from the first time Mingi had had these thoughts, but this time, they stole his focus completely. Because Jonghyun’s words had been playing in his mind since he’d first heard them, and now something clicked.

Mingi would be tired too, if the mistakes he’d made at eighteen had haunted him through their entire reversal, and beyond. If the ways he’d tried to show himself to the world back then had become the box he functioned within.

Mingi related to Jamie because at seventeen, he’d wanted to unapologetically be himself and show off to the world. He’d done it with painted nails and long hair and a forced attitude to convince the world that mean comments couldn’t hurt him.

And he’d done it wrong. People had misunderstood him all the time. People had paid attention to him over NU’EST because of it. The only thing that prevented Mingi from judging his past self harshly was that he’d been a kid, and that he'd learned better since.

Jonghyun had been a kid too. He’d been a kid who believed very strongly that soulmates were not the only way for a person to find love, who had been told countless times that a relationship like his parents’ was inferior. Jonghyun had tried to fight against it. He’d done it all wrong.

But unlike Mingi, who had no qualms with telling fans he had no plans to grow his hair out long again and could instead say what he wanted through opportunities that fit better, like playing Jamie, Jonghyun was stuck. Stagnant. It had backfired spectacularly when he’d tried to take everything back.

Mingi had always been empathetic, and extending that to Jonghyun took no effort. Envisioning where he'd be now if he'd stood on Produce 101's final stage with long blond hair nearly sent him tumbling off a desk. 

At the end of practice, when Hakmin approached with worried eyes and questions, Mingi brushed him off. So caught in his thoughts about Jonghyun, he barely noticed him. Mingi didn’t think about it until he was home again, and realized just how much he was kidding himself to pretend he and Hakmin could ever be anything but friends.

Mingi didn’t take the first chance he got to corner Jonghyun again, not even with his new realizations. He had big thoughts in his head, thoughts about fate, about second chances and who got them versus who deserved them. About how they’d had to make statements about who they were as teenagers, and how differently they’d grown up to be.

It was easier to understand Jonghyun now, but Mingi was also still angry. 

There were still a lot of things Jonghyun could have done differently. Jonghyun had always been too quick to turtle inside his comfort zone, and suffer alone, but he wasn't stupid. He had to know what he was doing wasn't the only way, or the best way. 

“You’re distracted today,” Dongho said. Mingi had swung by the studio about an hour ago. As expected, he’d found Dongho there, and now Mingi was sitting beside him, illuminated by the light of his desktop and wearing the headphones Bumzu normally used. Dongho had been showing him various snippets of works-in-progress.

“It’s because I’m tired,” Mingi said. “You should be too. Didn’t you work out today? On top of practice?”

“That’s why I have this.” Dongho held up an energy drink.

Mingi made a face. “Not what I meant.” He took the can from Dongho’s hand and took a sip of it. Energy drinks weren’t nearly as much his thing as they were Dongho’s, and he grimaced at the taste. Dongho laughed at him. “If you have this much energy, you should help me and Jonghyun move on Thursday.”

“Thursday?” Dongho’s eyebrows bunched together. “I thought the lease was up next month.”

Mingi shook his head. “It’s the thirtieth.” He tried to smile. “We’ll be neighbors in a few days. Kind of.” Mingi’s new apartment was on a different floor than Dongho and Minhyun’s.

He had been doing his best to convince Dongho he was alright, but now Dongho pulled his headphones off completely. Though it was an overreaction, Mingi matched him.

“What’s going on with you and Jonghyun?” Dongho asked. His forehead was creased, and he didn’t seem to know how to go about asking. Mingi understood. It had been five billion years since they’d needed a third party to mediate things between any two of them, and Mingi and Jonghyun had never been one of the pairs who needed it anyway. 

“Did he say anything?” Mingi asked, which was also weird because they didn’t talk behind each other’s backs either. But Mingi had to ask. Dongho and Jonghyun talked a lot, in the intimacy formed by late-night lyric writing. If Jonghyun had told anyone anything, it would have been Dongho.

“A couple months ago, he told me you weren’t moving.”

“It’s too big,” Mingi defended. “And expensive. And not that nice.” His own words sounded familiar, and he realized he was using the same excuses that Jonghyun had originally told him. When Dongho didn’t answer, Mingi added, “it was his idea, anyway.”

“Where’s his new apartment?” Dongho asked. “Our building? We’ll only need one van then.”

“I doubt it,” Mingi said.

“You don’t know?” That seemed to stop Dongho cold, and Mingi couldn’t totally meet his eyes.

“Things have been…” He didn’t know of how exactly he planned to finish that, but Dongho softened. He knew as well as any them had Mingi hadn’t had it easy recently. It was Dongho who had read all of Mingi’s various reiterations of _Must_.

“Listen to this,” Dongho told him. Obediently, Mingi picked up the headphones and put them on. The beat must have been sampled from somewhere, only four measures repeated a couple times. “I want to use this for something.”

“I like it,” Mingi said, though he knew he was hearing it differently than Dongho did. When Mingi heard a sampled beat, he heard the sampled beat. When Dongho heard it, he heard possibilities that weren’t yet there. “It’ll sound good.”

He pulled the headphones off, and something loud in him had quieted. There was something special about being in a studio with Dongho. Without his help, Mingi never would have finished _Must_.

Mingi had always been a tad jealous at how Jonghyun could pour himself into a notebook, especially as he’d stared at a blank page and tried fruitlessly to write down anything authentic.

It had been Dongho who told him words come out differently for everyone. For Jonghyun, writing lyrics was something intensely personal. He’d kept notebooks ever since they were trainees, and Mingi knew some of the words weren’t meant for anyone but himself. One of the worst fights Jonghyun and Mingi ever had happened after Mingi stole that notebook and read a few pages aloud.

Dongho, on the other hand, rarely wrote lyrics alone and only ever wrote them when he already had a song to work with. He and Bumzu would figure out the tone and some ideas, and off they went, chasing after what felt right.

Neither method was superior, but they had different strengths.

Dongho and Bumzu were the best at capturing a particular mood, while Jonghyun could comb through the words and make minuscule changes that led to big improvements. He’d done more of that recently, because his lyrics also had a unique cadence from Dongho and Bumzu’s, and while a rap verse could sound like it was written by a different person, it didn’t work elsewhere in a song.

Unsurprisingly, adapting Jonghyun’s lyrics didn’t work either. You couldn’t remove the _Jonghyun_ from them without ruining them.

And it wasn’t like Mingi had never written lyrics before, or that he hadn’t already known what Dongho was explaining to him, but hearing it one more time had cracked a wall in Mingi’s head. It gave him the freedom to try something different.

What poured out of him then hadn’t been lyrics, but rather a letter.

If only Mingi could fix things between him and Jonghyun with something as simple as a letter.

“Is it that obvious there’s something off between Jonghyun and me?” Mingi asked.

“So there is something?”

“What do you do when you fight with Minhyun? About important things?” It was maybe a little too on the nose, to compare him and Jonghyun to Dongho and Minhyun, but to Dongho’s credit, he didn’t bat an eye.

“I don’t think we do,” he said. Mingi scoffed, but Dongho went on, “not about important stuff. We talk about things too much. Fights like that only happen if you aren’t talking.”

It wasn’t what Mingi wanted to hear, if only because it identified his and Jonghyun’s problem so easily. “You fought when Minhyun wanted to move out.”

“He didn’t tell me before he said it to everyone,” Dongho said simply.

“So what am I supposed to do?”

Mingi didn’t expect much of an answer, but Dongho gave him one. “Start at the beginning,” he said. “Jonghyun doesn’t like to assume stuff, and you like to jump around. Go slow.”

Mingi sighed. “Why are you right?” he complained.

“Because you already knew the answer,” Dongho said easily. “If you want to vent, you’ve got to actually talk about it. Otherwise I have to tell you what I think.”

Mingi rolled his eyes. He lifted the headphones from around his neck and put them on. “Show me more now,” he said. Dongho grinned, and Mingi knew he’d heard a ‘thank you.’

It said a lot about how badly his and Jonghyun’s relationship had corroded that when Mingi poked his head into Jonghyun’s room and called his name, Jonghyun paused his game and turned around. “Hey.”

“Are you busy?”

Jonghyun shook his head. They had practiced earlier, and Jonghyun’s hair had the fluffiness Mingi would expect from his normal shower then nap then game routine.

“Do you… need something?” Jonghyun asked. Mingi was glad to see that this interaction was paining him as much as it was Mingi.

“I need you to sit there and listen, and I’m going to talk, and you’re not allowed to interrupt.” Mingi had not written Jonghyun a letter, but he had decided he would deliver this like one. He would be as honest as he was in his own mind, one great big aside to the audience to reveal his thoughts.

Mingi’s audience seemed wary now, and a little bemused, but still agreed.

“Okay, good.” Mingi clasped his hands in front of him. It made a weird noise. He was still standing in Jonghyun’s doorway. “You’re my soulmate,” he said.

Jonghyun shrunk back, but Mingi didn’t let that stop him.

“You’re my soulmate,” he repeated. It was the first time he’d said it to Jonghyun. “I promised myself I’d tell you in January, but I’ve been so, so scared of what you’d say back that I haven’t said it yet. And I swear if you listen to all of this just to tell me again that I don’t actually want what I do, I—”

“Mingi,” Jonghyun said. His voice was minuscule, but it still stopped Mingi dead. “Just tell me.”

“I told you not to talk,” Mingi said. Jonghyun only smiled apologetically, and waited.

What came spilling out of Mingi next was a cultivation of everything he’d been thinking about. It was about fate and second chances and the troubles that came with growing up while someone profited off your childhood. It was about how he would respect Jonghyun’s choices because he knew what it meant to choose your own fate, but he wouldn’t accept Jonghyun’s attempts to run away, because they both deserved better than that.

“You’re lying to a lot of people,” Mingi said. “I know you hate it, and I wish it was different, Jonghyun, I really wish it was for you. But pretending I’m not your soulmate doesn’t mean you aren’t lying. It means you’re making yourself and me miserable, and lying. Because no matter what you do, I’m your soulmate, and you’re mine.

“I’ve always wanted to be with you. I was angry—and I’m still angry, by the way, because you’re being dumb, and you know it—but I always planned to choose you. Even if what I did didn’t come across right, I’ve never wanted to drive you away, and I am so, so happy when you’re with me. We’re about to move out, and I need you to know that.”

As Mingi finished, Jonghyun’s face didn’t give much away, but the only time he ever passed for stoic was when he was overloaded. Finally, Jonghyun stood. In one smooth motion, he pulled Mingi into his arms. Mingi promptly began to bawl.

Like, gasping-and-shuddering bawling, or definitely-staining-Jonghyun’s-shirt bawling. Jonghyun held him through it.

“Don’t think this counts as an answer, Kim Jonghyun,” Mingi managed. “You do _not_ get to just hug me after I said all that.”

Jonghyun tried to pull back, but Mingi wasn’t letting him go that easily. Jonghyun laughed a little, though it was a wet sound. “Do you want me to talk while hugging you?” he asked, and there was a clear smile in his words, but it died quickly. “We’ll never be able to tell everyone.”

“As opposed to me dating anyone else, where I’d immediately tell the entire world?”

“Mingi.” Jonghyun’s voice was chiding, and Mingi maybe deserved it. He pulled back out of Jonghyun’s arms.

“A lot of what happened isn’t your fault,” he said. “You know that, right? That you were a kid, and you were trying your best, and of course you messed up, Jonghyun, because that’s what kids do. But the part that _is_ your fault is hiding it from the rest of us. And you know it. I don’t need you to tell me why being with you would be difficult—trust me, I’ve thought about it. I’ve thought about it for years. What I need to know is what’s going on in your head. Why have you never told anyone?”

And by the time Mingi finished, he knew the answer. Because finally— _finally_ —they had gotten to the root of this, and looking into Jonghyun’s eyes, Mingi could see it.

He was afraid.

“They’ll be angry,” he said. “I was so stupid for saying that.” He almost smiled at the end, but it was bitter. 

“You were a kid,” Mingi corrected. “You were a kid being forced to talk about soulmates when in reality, you shouldn’t have even had to think about yours yet.” Sometimes, when Mingi looked back on his memories, he realized that _huh, that was a bit fucked up, wasn’t it?_ The obsession with Jonghyun’s soulmate when he was only seventeen was one example.

“We would have fallen apart if I said I lied back then,” Jonghyun said. “It was hard enough with the company punishing us.”

“A lot has changed between then and now." Mingi tried to keep his voice mild, non-accusatory.

“I know, and I’m sorr—”

"You can start by saying it to me,” he said. “You still haven’t.” Mingi wasn't here for an apology. 

It hurt that even this was clearly difficult for Jonghyun, but Mingi would have been surprised if it wasn’t. There were many reasons why this conversation hadn’t happened sooner, and this was one of the big ones. He had to draw in an entire long breath to finally say it.

“You’re my soulmate,” Jonghyun said. Fresh tears fell from his eyes, even as he raised a hand to gently cup Mingi’s face. He said it again, as though getting used to it, and Mingi would listen to him say it as many times as he wanted.

Jonghyun’s face was closer now, their eyes focused directly on each other. Seeing each other for the billionth time, and letting themselves look without guilt for the first. Mingi was struck all over again by how beautiful Jonghyun was, and for the first time in a long while, he didn’t shove the thought away.

Kim Jonghyun, his soulmate. Kim Jonghyun, so kind and beautiful and thoughtful, and who shouldered burdens alone until you grabbed them from him yourself.

Kim Jonghyun, just a little bit dumb.

His thumb was stroking Mingi’s cheek now. Their faces were so close. 

“Don’t you dare kiss me right now, Kim Jonghyun,” Mingi told him. “You’re crying, and when people ask us for the entire rest of our lives what our first kiss tasted like, I refuse to have to say salt.”

Jonghyun laughed, but Mingi’s words only made his tears fall faster.

“That didn’t mean cry more,” Mingi said. “Hey. Kim Jonghyun. Look at me.”

“Mingi, you’re crying too.” Jonghyun ran his thumb under Mingi’s eye, and sure enough, it moved smoothly against Mingi’s wet skin.

“Of course I’m crying. You’re my soulmate. God, Jonghyun, you have no idea how long I’ve wanted to say that.”

"You're mine too." And Jonghyun’s smile was so soft and loving that Mingi wanted to believe this was the end, that everything would work out, but he wasn’t totally done yet.

“I need you to face this,” Mingi said. “You’ve lied to us for years, and you’ve made me lie too. No more. Okay? Not everyone, but we have to tell our members, and our families.”

Jonghyun did not seem surprised by Mingi’s words. “I have some good news with that, at least,” he said. “I told my family a couple months ago.”

_“What?”_

“When I was in Gangneung. My mom wanted me there because my sister met her soulmate. And when I met him, he told me he had to thank me, because they met at the Jungang market, and he only stopped there during his trip because he saw it on Night Goblin.”

Mingi had learned to associate a certain feeling with moments that were greater than coincidence. He felt it now, a tingling that went through his entire body. “What did you say?”

“Not much,” he said. “But I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and when my mom finally cornered me, she thought I was upset because both my sisters have soulmates, and I just—told her everything.”

It felt good, that someone else knew, but something still didn't add up. "How did that convince you to move out?" 

Jonghyun ducked his head. “You know what she’s like. She told me if I made a decision, to commit to it. Otherwise I’m just prolonging things.”

“So she thought you should move on.” That one hurt. She’d given Mingi a hug the last time he’d seen her.

“She said it’s my choice—but I could tell she thought I was making a bad one. But I just—I couldn’t imagine how I’d talk to you and how I’d tell the others. I still don’t know how. It's been so long.”

“If you don’t tell them, it’ll be forever. Is that really better?”

Jonghyun took a shuddery breath. “You’re right,” he said. “Just, be patient with me?”

And for all of Jonghyun’s faults, he had never led Mingi astray when he asked for Mingi to trust him. Of course Mingi would put his faith in Jonghyun again.

“Only if you keep me updated,” Mingi said. He punched Jonghyun’s shoulder. “No burying stuff.”

Jonghyun smiled and rubbed where Mingi had hit him. “Deal.”

[EXCERPT] 200509 [I am a leader] NU’EST’s JR “Even during the times when we could see the end… I had to become stronger”

**Q. You had to take on the role of the team’s leader at just seventeen. There must have been a lot of trial and error.**

In our early debut days, I made a lot of mistakes. I had the responsibility of being a leader, but I’m also human so I couldn’t help but be on edge sometimes. When things didn’t work out, I’d get really mad at the other members.

In a way, I was trying to only do things my way. I wanted them to follow what I said as I was their leader. And then one moment, I realized, ‘I’m doing this wrong’ if we were going to keep staying together. That’s when I started to think there were issues with my own attitude, and I started to change myself bit by bit. That was after Hello and before Sleep Talking. After that, I started to change and build up my own know-how of leading the team.

**Q. Please show off something that is a source of pride for NU’EST.**

Our music is definitely something [to show off], but I think our visuals are also a source of pride for us. (laughter) And our friendship. We really care for each other a lot. Truthfully, I believe we were meant to meet and work together in this way. Even when it has not been easy, I have always known that NU’EST is the ideal team I’d always dreamed of.

**Q. You’re going to be making a comeback with your 8th mini album “The Nocturne” on May 11. Please tell us what we should be anticipating.**

In one word, it’s “change.” It will feel like something nobody has experienced from us before. I think this album will be a new turning point for NU’EST. It’s an album that’s bringing in a new beginning for us.

（＾ｖ＾） #Im_In_Trouble @happiestbaekho

can we please talk about how much it means for kim freaking jonghyun, kim “rather than fate or destiny I believe in myself and my members” jonghyun to say he thinks nuest were supposed to end up together

\--

This was far from Mingi’s first time in this outfit and not even his first time finishing a show, but he still stopped to look in the floor-length mirror within the dressing room. He turned slowly, checking out the jean jacket and all its frills, paired with the sparkly black shirt tucked into his jeans. The gems on his forehead had to be glued on, and his face pulled strangely whenever he moved it.

He had done well. Not perfect, but well. The stage tonight had been no less intoxicating than the stage on the couple shows he’d already completed, and Mingi had smiled so widely his cheeks still stung as he took his final bow. Normally he would have changed now, but he had a few visitors coming, and they’d made him promise to stay in costume.

Mingi had wondered if the energy would lessen with each performance, but it truly hadn’t. Being Jamie was still fun, still important, and still one of the greatest things Mingi had ever done. He was so happy that he’d had this opportunity. 

There was a knock on Mingi’s door, and he turned to open it. His members all had masks on, but that did little to hide their smiles. Mingi bathed in their chorus of congratulations and praise. He puffed out his chest and let Minhyun check out the pompom on his jacket. Mingi had gone to a dressing room no one else was using, so they didn’t have to worry about getting in anyone’s way.

Jonghyun hung back from the initial congratulations, but Mingi didn’t worry about his silence. Not when Jonghyun’s eyes were soft and fond, and he was holding a single flower wrapped in clear plastic. They had been talking almost constantly, even though they now lived in different places. The conversations were about fate and second chances and who they could be together, but they were also about the minute details of their days, the normal things they'd always talked about.

After having a relationship so deceptively effortless and then losing it once their problems caught up to them, it took their active efforts to turn it into something better. Efforts like having to show up at each other’s apartments, or when too exhausted to visit, efforts to show affection in quick bites of each other’s favorite snacks.

And now Jonghyun was here, approaching Mingi as the others fell back. It was suspicious, how they were looking at him, but Mingi didn’t linger on that either.

“You did great,” Jonghyun told him. The flower was a rose, Mingi realized, and he vividly remembered how not so long ago, he’d called roses boring, and how little he cared about that now, as Jonghyun pressed it into his hands.

“It’s beautiful,” Mingi told him, and the light in Jonghyun's eyes could have lit up the entire world. Jonghyun was dressed to not be recognized: a hoodie, a black cap, a mask, and yet Mingi was struck by how beautiful he was all over again.

This was not the first moment they’d shared, but Jonghyun’s ears were red. It had been funny, discovering how easily they blushed around each other, but so far, it had only happened in private. Mingi was almost scared to read too much into why this was happening in front of the others. 

“Did you—?” Mingi could probably tell if he looked at them, but he couldn’t take his eyes off Jonghyun long enough to do it.

“Yes.”

“All of it?”

Jonghyun smiled. "Yes."

And the burden that lifted from Mingi then was one that he’d carried for years. It was a heaviness he’d grown so used to that he had to laugh as he was freed of it, the secret he’d kept from the people who mattered the most to him in this entire world.

With his free hand, Mingi pulled Jonghyun’s mask down. His smile gave way to surprise, as Mingi leaned in to give him a gentle kiss. They had not yet done this.

Jonghyun tasted a little like youth that had been swallowed up until it vanished, a little like struggle and hardship. He tasted like resourcefulness and second chances and all the ways they had taken what they got and made it into a life they wouldn’t regret.

This was Mingi’s soulmate. Mingi was kissing the boy he’d known for ten years, the boy with hopes and dreams and beliefs, who had made so many mistakes and done so many great things and who had become the man in Mingi’s arms now. They had grown up together. They would grow old together.

And if Mingi also tasted salt, later he'd refuse to admit it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i cant even explain how difficult this last chapter was, between trying to get what jonghyun believed across and transitioning from angst to the happy ending. i'd love to hear your thoughts on it, constructive criticism included!
> 
> also, soulmates tasting what each other eat is my favorite soulmate concept, but i've never seen anyone but me write it, so if this fic gave you an idea, please write it and then please tell me about it so i can read it lol
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/turtledovejr) | [curiouscat](https://t.co/EvjWvELOpC?amp=1)

**Author's Note:**

> :)
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/turtledovejr) | [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/overprimrose)


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